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SILAS MARNER 


The Western Series of English 
and American Classics 


General Editors 

S. R. Hadsell, Professor of Englisli, University 
of Oklahoma 
and 

Geo. C. Wells, High School Inspector, State of 
Oklahoma 

Ready 1926 

Irving. A Tour on the Prairies. Edited by Geo. C. Wells, 
High School Inspector of Oklahoma and Joseph B. 
Thoburn, Secretary Oklahoma Historical Society. 

Eliot. Silas Marner. Edited by the General Editors. 

Milton. Shorter Poems. Edited by L. J. Barton, Pro¬ 
fessor of Modern Languages, East Central Teachers’ 
College. 

Scott. The Lady of the Lake. Edited by Grace E. Jencke, 
Head of the Department of English, Southwestern 
'Teachers’ College. 

Stevenson. Treasure Island. Edited by the General Ed¬ 
itors. 

Sheridan. The Rivals. Edited by J. L. Rader, Librarian, 
University of Oklahoma. 

Goldsmith. She Stoops to Conquer. Edited by J. L. 
Rader, Librarian, University of Oklahoma. 

Tennyson. Idylls of the King. Edited by the General 
Editors. 

Scott. Ivanhoe. Edited by Bessie M. Huff, Head of the 
Department of English, Muskogee High School. (Janu¬ 
ary, 1927.) 


Others in preparation. 


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The Western Series of English and 
American Classics 


Silas Marner 

By 

GEORGE :^LIOT 

Edited for School Use 

BY 

S. R. Hadsell 

Professor of English, ZJnwersity of Oklahoma 

AND 

Geo. C. Wells 

High School Inspector, ^State of- Oklahoma 



HARLOW PUBLISHING COMPANY 
Oklahoma City 
1926 









Copyright, 1926, by 
Harlow Publishing Co. 


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CONTENTS 


Page 

Preface to Students. i 

A Lesson in the Biography of George Eliot. xi 

Silas Marker 
P art I. 

Chapter I . 1 

Chapter II.18 

Chapter III.30 

Chapter IV.47 

Chapter V.58 

Chapter VI . 66 

Chapter VII.81 

Chapter VIII.89 

Chapter IX .... 102 

Chapter X.. . 113 

Chapter XI . 136 

Chapter XII. 166 

Chapter XIII.175 

Chapter XIV.186 

Chapter XV.205 

Part II 

Chapter XVI.207 

Chapter XVII.231 

Chapter XVIII.247 

Chapter XIX . 253 

Chapter XX . . . L /.267 

Chapter XXI.271 

Conclusion.276 

Suggestions to Teachers . '.281 

























List of Illustrations 


Page 

George Eliot .Frontispiece 

Graphic Analysis of Silas Marner .... viii 

George Eliot’s Birthplace . . xii 

Griff House . xv 

George Eliot’s Home at Coventry . . . . xx 

A Cottage at Raveloe . 211 


Dame School Attended by George Eliot . . 223 






PREFACE TO STUDENTS 


The question with which we may begin our study 
of Silas Marnwr is this: Why study this classic? 

The first answer is that by the study of this 
classic we may increase our knowledge of history, 
of life, of structure, and of style. 

The story gives information about England in 
the early part of the nineteenth century, especial¬ 
ly in that it shows us the home life of a typical 
English Squire, and the life of an English village. 
Notice the opening sentences of paragraphs 1 
and 2. 

'Tn the days when the spinning-wheels hummed 
busily in the farm houses—and even great ladies, 
clothed in silk and thread lace, had their toy 
spinning-wheels of polished oak—there might be 
seen in the districts far away among the lanes, or 
deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid men, 
who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, look¬ 
ed like the remnants of a disinherited race.’' 

“In the early years of this century, such a linen- 
weaver, named Silas Marner, worked at his voca¬ 
tion in a stone cottage that stood among the nutty 
hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, and not 
far from the edge of a deserted stonepit.” 

To the young and inexperienced, the book gives 
a summary of the experience of certain adults who 
were tried by the events of a life. The life 
of a young girl is revealed from the time that she 
was two until she was eighteen. In one or two 
instances, Eppie had to make very important de¬ 
cisions. What would you have done under like 
conditions? There is also the testing of •Godfrey 


11 


Silas Marker 


Cass from young manhood up to middle age. As 
you get to know him, will you think that one can 
ever make entirely right a wrong that one has 
once done? There is the experience of Silas, the 
miser, the outcast, who learned in a bitter school 
that a man cannot live to himself alone, and that a 
little child is more important than a pot of gold. 
There is the wisdom of Dolly Winthrop who, ig¬ 
norant of philosophy and theology, was neverthe¬ 
less able to resolve her own doubts and those of 
Silas. Life had taught her philosophy. We shall 
know what to do when the test comes, if we have 
had experience. Through books we gather experi¬ 
ence quickly and surely. 

A classic is something which has stood the test 
of time; it lives. It has given information and 
fine feeling to a great many people. We have 
reached the stage in English Literature where not 
to know Silas Marner may leave us out of the 
conversation; for it is universally known. Taste 
it and you will see why. It is big enough to have 
some appeal to all classes of readers. You can 
read it several times and enjoy it each time just 
as you used to enjoy the repetition of “The Three 
Bears,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” or “Jack and 
the Bean-stalk.” Those were classics, too, chil¬ 
dren’s classics. 

One can learn by the study of this book some¬ 
thing about the structure of a novel. We might 
say, something about the rules of this game. 
Those who enjoy a game best know the rules. See 
what particular work the introduction does. No¬ 
tice how the author sets the story moving and 


Preface 


iii 


then makes you wait, after she has caught your 
attention, until she goes back fifteen years to tell 
you what happened to Silas before he came to 
Raveloe. The introduction also sets the stage, and 
introduces some of the important characters. You 
will see where the turns or climaxes are; you will 
appreciate the big climax at the point where Silas 
finds Eppie asleep before his fire. You will see 
how two groups of people, the Red House group 
and the Raveloe village group, go their way apart, 
and how at times they mix, and meet. You will 
see thus how a novelist sometimes manages to 
weave a main and a sub-plot together. You will 
learn how a novelist manages suspense, that is, 
whether she makes you wait, or whether she 
makes the people in the story wait. You will 
learn the true meaning of such technical critical 
terms as plot, climax, suspense, developing char¬ 
acter, humorous cho,racter, denouement, catastro¬ 
phe, and so on. If you will watch closely you will 
see that George Eliot studied the psychology of 
Silas, and presented him to her readers in such a 
way that he seems to grow from bad to better and 
good within twenty-one rather short chapters. 
This was a new experiment in the novel. 

You can learn something here about an appro¬ 
priate English prose style. Style, they say, is the 
man; here it is the woman. If the woman is not 
good, the style will not ring true. But Mary Ann 
Evans is sincere. These people are her brain chil¬ 
dren. She is a just mother. She does not permit 
Silas to spank Eppie, but she allows him to put 
her down in the coal-hole. She is honest, and 


IV 


Silas Marker 


courageous, and merciful. The book is like a let¬ 
ter from a friend. You will enjoy the words she 
uses, and the phrases she makes. You will like the 
way she has her characters talk. Certain ex¬ 
pressions will make you laugh; others may make 
you cry, for as Chaucer says, ‘Tity runneth 
soon in gentle heart.” The author pitied and loved 
and laughed at her book people, we may be sure. 
While you are studying the style (manner of ex¬ 
pression) , in this dassic, let us hope that because 
you have been in good company for a season you, 
too, will talk and write well. 

We have said that the study of this book will 
broaden your knowledge. It will also strengthen 
your ideals. Plainly we see that Dunstan Cass 
was wrong, and that Godfrey Cass was cowardly 
and selfish until he repented. But Godfrey had 
to pay, and he caused innocent people to suffer. 
We see that Nancy was frail and selfish and hu¬ 
man, but, after all, true blue. Eppie was a good 
girl, and Aaron was a good boy; they deserved 
their happiness. They respected and honored 
their parents. The philosophy and religion of 
Dolly are safe. Silas suffered for his mistakes, 
forsook material things, became social and help¬ 
ful; he won self-respect and the respect of his 
neighbors. We sympathize with these characters 
and we judge them according to our standards of 
right and wrong. When we see the bad clearly 
and the good plainly, our ideals are made stronger. 
We glow when a good deed is done in a book, as 
we do when a good deed is done in real life. 


Preface 


V 


We study Silas Marner, in the third place, to 
deepen our emotions. Feeling may be classified as 
good, better, and best. At first. Silas had weak, 
evil feelings about God and man; when he opened 
his heart to Eppie, he improved until he became 
a true Christian and a true gentleman. What if 
William Dane was not punished? Is revenge a 
fine feeling? Isn't forgiveness finer? We feel as 
we read, with Silas, with Nancy, with Godfrey, 
with Eppie. Maybe they are better characters 
than we are. The novelist must make them nat¬ 
ural and make them fine. It will therefore do us 
no harm to feel with these people in their sorrows 
and their joys; it may train us in fine feeling. We 
may laugh, we may cry, we may get angry, we 
may hate injustice and love mercy. It is as if we 
•acted the parts ourselves. It is as if we had to de¬ 
cide as Eppie did whether she would show grati¬ 
tude to Silas, or selfishly choose wealth and fine 
clothing with the father who had deeply wronged 
her. We take off our hats to Eppie who did not sell 
her soul for a mess of pottage. Good books make 
you feel good. If you feel good long enough, you 
will be good. This is a good book. 

Knowledge and feeling have an influence upon 
our conduct. In some way every book we read af¬ 
fects our conduct. What will you do if you are 
ever tempted like William Dane or Dunstan Cass? 
Having known their experience, you will be warn¬ 
ed. You will not be ‘‘green" concerning the facts 
of life. You will know that honesty is the best 
policy, and that aside from policy, honesty is 
sound, where dishonesty is rotten at the core. 


VI 


Silas Marner 


Good and bad were the same in Raveloe as they 
are in your community. How are you going to 
avoid the evil and cleave to the good? You can¬ 
not cross a bridge until you come to it, but you 
can be forewarned, and they say that forewarned 
is forearmed. If at some crisis, the experience of 
Dolly, Eppie, Silas, Godfrey, or Molly comes to 
mind, their example may help you to decide right. 
The influence of books upon character is hard to 
estimate, but that influence is great. 

If we study this story of George Eliot's for in¬ 
struction, let us remember also that we study it 
for recreation, amusement, fun. Reading is a fine 
game when one understands how to apply the 
rules, and how to do it without rules. Open 
the pages of a book and begin to read. By 
some magic the author takes you away from 
home, and a hundred years away from your own 
time. You travel in Raveloe without buying a 
ticket, waiting for a train, or being sea-sick on the 
ocean. You can read Silas Marner sitting in a 
hammock, eating chocolate creams. And then, you 
can read other books by the same author, and oth¬ 
er books of the same class by other authors. 
There are more books in the world than you can 
read, but in proportion as you read you will en¬ 
joy; you will cultivate your soul, you will improve 
your taste, you will increase your wisdom; but 
above all you will learn how to employ your leisure 
time in safe and true enjoyment. 

Here are numerous reasons for reading or 
studying Silas Marner. You will find others for 
yourself. We have said that you can gain knowl- 


Preface 


vii 


ledge of history, of life, of structure, of style, of 
character. You can enlarge your ideals. You can 
cultivate finer feelings. You can motivate your 
own conduct. You can raise the level of your own 
speech and writing. You can train your imagina¬ 
tion and taste. You can learn to read and learn 
to like reading. You can play the game fairly, 
and you can have fun. What power you gain you 
can use all your life whether in reading, writing, 
or in thinking or living. 


PARTS 

INTPODUC- 

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CHAPTERS 

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USE OF THE CHART. 


The chart, on the preceding pages, presents a 
brief graphic analysis of the divisions of the story 
of Silas Marner, of the time, real and dramatic, of 
the plot, and of the character grouping. If one 
will read from the top downward, relations of 
place, time, and action for any chapter will sug¬ 
gest themselves. 

The movement of the plot and sub-plot is sug¬ 
gested by lines which show certain turns or cli¬ 
maxes. The closed circles represent scenes in 
which the characters act, the open circles denote 
that at the points designated the characters are 
mentioned. 

The class may follow the chart as the study and 
reading progress. Or with this pattern as a guide, 
the class may fill out the analysis in more detail; 
a large blackboard, or a large sheet of paper may 
be used. Pupils who are willing to do so may 
make for themselves such a “map” of the story. 

It is the purpose of the editors by means of this 
design to give a bird’s eye view of the action be¬ 
fore the story is read, and to suggest a means of 
rapid review. After one has visited a city, the 
map is more intelligible and more interesting. 
Teachers will find that the chart provides an ap¬ 
proach which arouses interest but which does not 
take away interest as the rapid reading (which 
is usually suggested as necessary before one be¬ 
gins the study of a classic) is likely to do. The 
chart gives an idea of what is to come, but it 
does not tell, too soon, just who got married at 
last. 


[X] 


A LESSON IN THE BIOGRAPHY OF 
GEORGE ELIOT 

George Eliot, author of Silas Marner, was intel¬ 
lectually, emotionally and spiritually an honest 
woman. She tried to see with her own eyes and 
speak with her own tongue, but she was willing 
to accept full responsibility for what she thought 
and said. She drsliked sham and pretense, senti¬ 
mentality, and hypocrisy; her best books, there¬ 
fore, are honest criticisms and interpretations of 
the life she knew. They do not falsify life in the 
mirror they present as do books by ignorant, sen¬ 
timental, and intellectually dishonest authors. 

George Eliot is the pen name of Marian, or 
Mary Ann Evans, who spent her girlhood in the 
country in Warwickshire, England, and her ma¬ 
ture life in travel, or in London. She was born 
on a farm a mile from Griff, November 22, 1819, 
and died in London, 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, De¬ 
cember 22, 1880. She was buried beside her hus¬ 
band, G. H. Lewes, in Highgate Cemetery, London. 
She formed a union with G. H. Lewes in 1853. 
Lewes died in 1878. In 1880, George Eliot mar¬ 
ried J. W. Cross, an American banker, who be¬ 
came, after her death, her official biographer. He 
published her letters and journals in three vol¬ 
umes. George Eliot had no children, but she was 
a good mother to the sons of G. H. Lewes. In 
thinking of our author, we must keep in mind 
all these names: George Eliot, Mary Ann Evans, 
Mrs. Lewes, and Mrs. Cross. 

It is said that people may be known by the com¬ 
pany they keep. If you apply this test to George 
[xi] 


Silas Marker 




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Biography of George Eliot 


xiii 


Eliot, you will see that she numbered among her 
friends the Hennells, the Franklins, the Brays, 
G. H. Lewes, Herbert Spencer, Charles Dickens, 
the Carlyles, R. W. Emerson, and many others 
who in music, art, and literature were in sympa¬ 
thy with her. She was a contemporary of Liszt 
and Wagner, Darwin, Huxley, Faraday, Words¬ 
worth, Tennyson, the Brownings, Froude, Ruskin, 
J. S. Mill, Burne-Jones, Miss Martineau, Kings¬ 
ley, Trollope, Reade, Bulwer, Thackeray. She read 
American and continental literature. She talked 
with Emerson, Bryant, and Theodore Parker. She 
read with pleasure Margaret Fuller, Thoreau, and 
Hawthorne. She learned Italian, German, French, 
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, visited the continent 
often, and knew the personages and the thought 
of Europe in her time. As an adult then, George 
Eliot lived in an atmosphere of learning and cul¬ 
ture. 

The complete works of George Eliot, as pub¬ 
lished in 1908, contain twenty-five volumes. She 
wrote essays, editorials, translations, reviews, 
criticisms, novels, and poetry. Her novels fall 
within a period of twenty years, from 1856 to 
1876. Her fiction may be listed as follows: 

1856— (published in Blackwood’s Magazine, 
1857) the first of The. Scenes of Clerical 
Life, The Sad Fortune of the Reverend 
Amos Barton. 

1857— a collection of stories. Scenes from Clerical 
Life (including Mr. GilfiVs Love-story), 

1859— Adam Bede. 

1860— The Mill on the Floss. 


XIV 


Silas Marner 


1861 —Silas Marner, 

1863— Romola, 

1866 —Felix Holt, 

1872— Middlemarch. 

1876 —Daniel Deronda, 

Let us next inquire what prepared George Eliot 
for writing fiction. We may well divide the an¬ 
swer into two parts, considering first, the period 
of childhood and youth when Mary Evans was 
storing her memory with impressions of life and 
people, and considering next, the period of her 
actual apprenticeship to writing and publishing. 

“We can imagine the excitement of a little four- 
year old girl and her seven-year old brother wait¬ 
ing, on a bright frosty morning, to hear the far- 
off ringing beat of the horses' feet upon the hard 
ground, and then to see the gallant appearance of 
the four grays, with coachman and guard in scar¬ 
let, outside passengers muffled up in furs, and bas¬ 
kets of game and other packages hanging behind 
the boot, as His Majesty's mail swung cheerily 
round on its way from; Birmingham to Stamford. 
Two coaches passed the door daily—one from 
Birmingham at 10 o'clock in the morning, the 
other from Stamford at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. 
These were the chief connecting links between 
the household at Griff and the outside world. 
Otherwise life went on with that monotonous 
regularity which distinguishes the country from 
the town. And it is to these circumstances of her 
early life that a great part of the quality of 
George Eliot's writing is due, and that she holds 
the place she has attained in English literature. 


Biography of George Eliot 


XV 



GRIFF HOUSE 











XVI 


Silas Marker 


Her roots were down in the pre-railroad, pre¬ 
telegraphic period—the days of fine old leisure— 
but the fruit was formed during an era of extra¬ 
ordinary activity in scientific and mechanical dis¬ 
covery. Her genius was the outcome of these 
conditions.'” 

Mary Ann Evans went first to a dame’s school 
close to the Griff gates. 

'The little girl very early became possessed 
with the idea that she was going to be a personage 
in the world; and Mr. Charles Lewes has told me 
an anecdote which George Eliot related of herself 
as characteristic of her childhood. When she was 
only four years old she recollected playing on the 
piano, of which she did not know one note, to 
impress the servant with a proper notion of her 
acquirements and generally distinguished posi¬ 
tion.'” 

As a child, Mary Ann Evans admired her 
brother Isaac and followed him about. She was 
a favorite of her father, and often rode with him 
about the countryside where he was well and fav¬ 
orably known to everybody. Her sister Christiana 
had been sent to Miss Latham's school at Attle¬ 
boro and there, aged five, Mary Ann was sent for 
the next three or four years, with the privilege of 
coming home to Griff occasionally on Saturdays. 
When she was eight or nine she was sent with her 
sister to Miss Wadlington’s school at Nuneaton. 
One of the teachers. Miss I.ewis, she loved' very 

^Cross, J. W. George EUofs Life as Related in her Letters 
and Journals, New York, 1885, I, 7, 8. 

’Ibid, p. 10. 



Biography of George Eliot xvii 

much, and later for a number of years she carried 
on a regular correspondence with this friend. She 
became a great reader, and her friends sent her 
gifts of books constantly. She became a letter 
writer, too, and at this exercise she undoubtedly 
gave herself training in composition. The num¬ 
ber of long letters which she w^rote is surprising 
to us in these days of haste. 

In her thirteenth year, Mary Ann Evans enter¬ 
ed the school of the Misses Franklin in Coventry. 
The brother of the Misses Franklin was a Baptist 
minister who preached in Coventry, and under the 
influence of school and family the girl became 
very religious and very conscientious. There is 
a record that she frequently led the prayer meet¬ 
ing, and that she was one of the model pupils. 
She had been trained in the Established Church, 
but later was introduced to the methods of the 
Dissenters, and received impressions of religion 
which she expressed in after days in Adam Bede 
and Silas Marner. Mr. Cross says: 

'‘Miss Rebecca Franklin was a lady of consid¬ 
erable intellectual power, and remarkable for her 
elegance in writing and conversation, as well as 
for her beautiful calligraphy. In her classes for 
English composition Mary Ann Evans was from 
the first entering school, far in advance of the 
rest ; tand while the themes of the other children 
were read, criticised, and corrected in class, hers 
were reserved for the private perusal and enjoy¬ 
ment of the teacher, who rarely found anything 
to correct. Her enthusiasm for music was already 
very strongly marked, and her music-master, a 


xviii Silas Marker 

much tried man, suffering from the irritability 
incident to his profession, reckoned on his hour 
with her as a refreshment to his wearied nerves, 
and soon had to confess that he had no more to 
teach her . . . When there were visitors, Miss 
Evans, as the best performer in the school, was 
sometimes summoned to the parlor to play for 
their amusement, and though suffering agonies 
from shyness and reluctance, she obeyed with all 
readiness, but, on being released, my mother has 
often known her to rush to her own room and 
throw herself on the floor in an agony of tears/’" 

It was partly because of their mother’s ill- 
health that the Evans girls were sent away to 
boarding school; and when in 1836 her mother 
died, Mary Ann, aged seventeen, became her fa¬ 
ther’s housekeeper, and continued his friend and 
companion until his death in 1849. Once in this 
period the impulsive girl was estranged from her 
father over questions of religion, and refused to 
go to church, but her good sense soon prevailed 
and the friends were reconciled. She was there¬ 
after a dutiful daughter. All her biographers pay 
tribute to her father, who is perhaps pictured to 
us as Adam, the faithful and conscientious work¬ 
man in Adam Bede, and all her biographers note 
the influence of her father’s character upon her. 
He was a man of middle age when she was born, 
so that she had the benefit of his seasoned advice 
and experience. 

The period from 1836 to 1849 was an important 

®Oross, I, 18-19, From a paper by a lady whose mother 
had been at the Misses Franklins W|ith George Eliot. 



Biography of George Eliot 


XIX 


formative period in the life of Mary Ann Evans. 
It is associated in part with the house in the 
Foleshill Road near Coventry. While the young 
lady had an opportunity to reflect upon what she 
had learned in school and a chance to read widely, 
she also continued her correspondence and her 
study of music and languages. She was soon re¬ 
moved from an isolated world to one full of intel¬ 
lectual friendship and stimulus. Charles Bray, 
ribbon manufacturer, writer, and philanthropist, 
became her friend. In 1836, Charles Bray married 
Caroline, the sister of Charles and Sara Hennell. 
The house in Coventry was next door to Mrs. 
Pears, a sister of Mr. Bray, and through Mrs. 
Pears, George Eliot was introduced to a group of 
friends who influenced the whole course of her 
life. Without going into the religious opinions, 
scientific opinions, and philosophical opinions of 
the Coventry group, we may say briefly that Mary 
Ann Evans’ intellectual and emotional horizon 
was immediately broadened by this new friend¬ 
ship, and that after we leave this period we are 
immediately introduced to George Eliot, the journ¬ 
alist and editor. As an editor, George Eliot was 
pushed full into the current of the thought of her 
day. 

In 1846, Mary Ann Evans translated from the 
German The Life of Jesus by Strauss. In 1852 
and 1853 she was assistant editor of The West¬ 
minster Review, In the July number appeared 
an article by Miss Evans on The Lady Novelists. 
She translated from the German of Feuerbach 
The Essence of Christianity, October, 1854, ap- 


XX 


Silas Marner 













\ 


GEORGE ELIOT’S HOME AT COVENTRY 

















VBiography of George Eliot xxi 

peared her W^man in France : Madame de Sable, 
October, 185^ Evangelical Teaching: Dr. Gum¬ 
ming, January, 1856, appeared German Wit: 
Heinrich Heine, In July, The Natural History 
of German Life. In October, Silly Novels by 
Lady Novelists. In January, 1857, Worldliness 
and Other-Worldliness: the Poet Young. 

Here then was a decade of direct apprentice¬ 
ship, when she was doing editorial work. Notice 
especially the essiays on lady novelists. She had 
a theory of fiction formulated, at least as to what 
a lady novelist should not do, before she began 
to write fiction herself. 

Since we have reviewed briefiy the period of 
preparation and the period of apprenticeship, let 
us turn to her letters and journals again to find 
out how she. turned toward fiction, and especially 
how she came to write Silas Marner. 

In 1853 Mary Ann Evans united with G. H. 
Lewes, editor, critic and scientist, a man with a 
wide acquaintance and a critic of genuine insight. 
Lewes had a wife who was unfaithfuLto him. She 
deserted him, leaving their children. She re¬ 
turned ; he forgave her. Again she deserted, and 
because he had once received her, by the laws of 
England, he could not secure a divorce. G. W. 
Cooke says: 

“When Lewes and Marion Evans met, on her 
going to live in London, and after his wife had 
deserted him, there sprang up a strong attach¬ 
ment between them. As they could not be legally 


xxii 


Silas Marker 


married, she agreed to live with him without that 
formality.”^ 

Fourteen months after this marriage, Mrs. 
Lewes wrote to her friend, Mrs. Bray: “If there 
is any one action or relation of my life which is, 
and always has been, profoundly serious, it is my 
relation to Mr. Lewes.’^® 

“We are leading no life of self-indulgence, ex¬ 
cept, indeed, that being happy in each other, we 
find everything easy. We are working hard to 
provide for others more than we provide for our¬ 
selves, and to fulfill every responsibility that is 
upon us.’^® 

In 1857 she writes to Sara Hennell: “If I live 
five years longer, the positive result of my exist¬ 
ence on the side of truth and goodness will out¬ 
weigh the small negative good that would have 
consisted in my not doing anything to shock 
others, and I can conceive no consequences that 
will make me repent the past.’^' 

Lewes writes in his journal in 1859: “I owe 
Spencer another and a deeper debt. It was 
through him that I learned to know Marion—to 
know her was to love her—and since then my life 
has been a new birth. To her I owe all my pros¬ 
perity and all my happiness. God bless her.”* 

In 1861, Mrs. Lewes writes to Mrs. Taylor: 
“For the last six years I have ceased to be ‘Miss 

^Cooke, G. W. George Eliot, Boston and New York, 1883, 

p. 40. 

®Cross, Life, etc. I, 234, 235. 

«Cross, Life, etc. I, 234, 235. 

’Cross, I, 331-2. 

•Cross, II, 56. 



Biography of George Eliot xxiii 

Evans^ for any one who has «a personal relation 
with me—having held myself under all the re¬ 
sponsibilities of a married woman. I wish this 
to be distinctly understood; and when I tell you 
we have a great boy of eighteen at home, who 
calls me 'Mother’ as well as two other boys, almost 
as tall, who write to me under the same name, you 
will understand that the point is not one of mere 
egoism or personal dignity, when I request that 
anyone who has a regard for me will cease to 
speak of me by my maiden name.”® 

Mrs. Lewes writes, "September 1856 made a 
new era in my life, for it was then I began to write 
fiction.” She tells how, when she and G. H. Lewes 
were in Berlin, that she read a chapter which 
she had once written describing the life of a Staf¬ 
fordshire village and the life of the neighboring 
farm-houses. "He was struck with it as a bit of 
concrete description, and it suggested to him the 
possibility of my being able to write a novel, 
though he distrusted—indeed disbelieved in—my 
possession of any dramatic power.” She succeed¬ 
ed so well in other types of writing that he urged 
her to try a novel. "He began to say very posi¬ 
tively 'You must try and write a story,’ and when 
we were at Tenby, he urged me to begin at once.” 
Soon after that, the title of a story came to her. 
The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton. 
Lewes thought the title a good one. She began it 
on the 22nd of September, 1856, and finished it on 
the 5th of November. Mr. Lewes sent it with 

•Cross, II, 213-214. Of course she is referring to her step¬ 
sons. 



XXIV 


Silas Marker 


some criticism of it to Blackwood’s Magazine in 
Edinburgh, Scotland. The story was accepted 
and printed. It was the first of those stories 
which now appear under the title of Scenes from 
Clerical Life. Silas Marner is sometimes printed 
with these stories as having something of the 
same background and atmosphere. Blackwoods 
became George Eliot’s principal publishers and 
John Blackwood became her life-long friend. 

Adam Bede was George Eliot’s first great suc¬ 
cess, and after that came The Mill on the Floss. 
In her journal for November 20, 1860, she writes: 
'‘Last Tuesday—the 20th—we had a pleasant eve¬ 
ning. Anthony Trollope dined with us, and made 
me like him very much by his straightforward, 
wholesome Wesen. Afterwards Mr. Helps came 
in, and the talk was extremely agreeable. He told 
me the queen had been speaking to him in great 
admiration of my books—especially The Mill on 
the Floss. It is interesting to know that royalty 
can be touched by that sort of writing, and I was 
grateful to Mr. Helps for his wish to tell me of the 
sympathy given to me in that quarter. 

To-day I have had a letter from M. d’Albert, 
saying that at last the French edition of Adam 
Bede is published. He pleases me very much by 
saying that he finds not a sentence he can re¬ 
trench in the first volume of “The Mill.'' 

I am engaged now in writing a story—^the idea 
of which came to me after our arrival in this 
house (10 Norwood Square) and which has thrust 
itself between me and the other book I was medi¬ 
tating. It is Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe. 


Biography of George Eliot xxv 

I am still only at about the 62d page, for I have 
written slowly and interruptedly.’”" 

Silas Marner was begun at 10 Norwood Square, 
and finished at 16 Blackford Square. 

In January of 1861, Georgie Eliot wrote to John 
Blackwood: ‘'I am writing a story which came 
across my other plans by sudden inspiration. I 
don’t know at present whether it will resolve it¬ 
self into a book short enough for me to complete 
before Easter, or whether it will expand beyond 
that possibility. It seems to me that nobody will 
take any interest in it but myself, for it is ex¬ 
tremely unlike the popular stories going; but Mr. 
Lewes declares that I am wrong, and says it is 
as good as anything I have done. It is a story of 
old-fashioned village life, which has unfolded it¬ 
self fromj the merest millet-seed of thought. I 
think I get slower and more timid in my writing, 
but perhaps worry about houses and servants and 
boys, with want of bodily strength, may have 
something to do with that. I hope to be quiet 
now.”” 

In a letter to Blackwood, February 24, 1861, 
we find this comment: '1 don’t wonder at your 
finding my story, as far as you have read it, rather 
sombre; indeed, I should not have believed that 
anyone would have been interested in it but my¬ 
self (since Wordsworth is dead) if Mr. Lewes 
had not been strongly arrested by it. But I hope 
you will not find it at all a sad story, as a whole. 


’Cross, II, 203, 4. 
‘Cross, II, 206-207. 



XXVI 


Silas Marker 


since it sets—or is intended to set—in a strong 
light the remedial influences of pure, natural hu¬ 
man relations. The Nemesis is a very mild one. 
I have felt all through as if the story would have 
lent itself best to metrical rather than to prose 
fiction, especially in all that relates to the psychol¬ 
ogy of Silas; except that, under that treatment, 
there could not have been an equal play of humor. 
It came to me first quite suddenly, as a sort of 
legendary tale, suggested by my recollection of 
having once, in early childhood, seen a linen-weav¬ 
er with a bag on his back; but as my mind dwelt 
on the subject, I became inclined to more realistic 
treatment.'''" 

March 10, 1861, there is this entry in the Jour¬ 
nal : '‘Finished Silas Marner and sent off the last 
thirty pages to Edinburgh." 

March 19, in a letter to the Brays, George Eliot 
writes: ''Silas Marner is in one volume. It was 
quite a sudden inspiration that came across me 
in the midst of altogether different meditations." 

By April, she had learned that the subscription 
exceeded five thousand five hundred copies. 

In September of 1861, she writes: “Finished 
correcting Silas Marner. I have thus corrected 
all my books for a new and cheaper edition, and 
feel my mind free for other work." 

In October, 1861, she began Romola, and finish¬ 
ed it in June, 1863. She received 7000 pounds for 
it, about $35,000. Silas Marner, though an experi¬ 
ment with her, had added to her fame, and had 


^Cross, II, 210-11. 



Biography of George Eliot xxvii 

not detracted from it. Some critics to-day think 
it is one of the best of her novels from the point 
of view of structure and artistry. 

We have told briefly a story of success. To 
what may we attribute that success? Her father 
wrote in an old diary: “November 22, 1819. Mary 
Ann Evans was born at Arbury Farm, at five 
o’ clock this morning.” 

J. W. Cross comments on this entry thus: 
“This is an entry, in Mr. Robert Evan’s hand¬ 
writing, on the page of an old diary that now lies 
before me, and records, with characteristic precis¬ 
ion, the birth of his youngest child, afterwards 
known to the world as George Eliot. Let us pause 
for a moment to pay its due homage to the pre* 
cision because it was in all probability to this 
most noteworthy quality of her father’s nature 
that the future author was indebted for one of 
the principal elements of her own after-success— 
‘the enormous faculty for takings pains’.’”® 

We have been trying here to keep our eye on 
George Eliot as the author of Silas Marner, a book 
we are to study and read. The many books of 
biography, the many articles of criticism written 
about her, take up points which we have omitted. 
We want in this lesson in biography to create in¬ 
terest in the writer and in the book. Considering 
the few details w.e have reviewed, it must be plain 
that George Eliot used material which she knew. 
It must be plain that she learned to write by train¬ 
ing her powers of observation, by the study of life 


“Cross I, 1. 



xxviii 


Silas Marner 


and of books, and by much active and energetic 
practice. She wrote many letters. She kept a 
journal. She studied foreign languages and trans¬ 
lated them into English. She studied theology 
and philosophy. She studied science. She devel¬ 
oped her own mind and spirit by will-power, and 
by mental and spiritual energy. She read an 
amazing number of books, and knew an amaz¬ 
ing number of great men and women. One 
reason that we do not have more people like 
George Eliot is that few have the native ability, 
and few have the will and the energy to do what 
she did. Besides these elements we have to con¬ 
sider the help of friends, and the demand of the 
public for her kind of books. In her day, people 
wanted books like hers, and perhaps they always 
will. 

Mary Ann Evans, George Eliot, became a great 
woman. We do not realize emphatically enough 
what greatness means. When we are children, we 
think we are all going to be great, but the great 
men and women are comparatively few. As a 
child, Mary Ann Evans was unusual. As a girl, 
she showed promise. As a young woman, she 
worked hard. She fought hard. She had self- 
reliance. She faced difficulties and overcame 
them. After she had achieved an education, and 
after she had served an apprenticeship, she began 
to bear fruit. Critics saw at once that the fruit 
was good. She made money; she achieved fame; 
she achieved a kind of immortality; she was great¬ 
er than all of those who criticised her adversely. 
Some of her books have become classic; that is, 


Biography of George Eliot 


XXIX 


they have a permanent value—something intan¬ 
gible drawn from a great spirit which acquired 
the power to express itself. 


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SILAS MARNER 





Silas Marner 


“A child, more than all other gifts 
That earth can offer to declining man, 
Brings hope n^ith it, and forway^d- 
looking thoughts." 

-WOHDSWORTH. 


PART I 


CHAPTER I 

In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed 
busily in the farm houses—and even great ladies, 
clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spin¬ 
ning-wheels of polished oak—^there might be seen 
in districts far away among the lanes, or deep 
in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid under¬ 
sized men, who, by the side of the brawny country¬ 
folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited 
race. The shepherd’s dog barked fiercely when 
one of these alien-looking men appeared on the 
upland, dark against the early winter sunset; for 
what dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag? 
—and these pale men rarely stirred abroad with¬ 
out that mysterious burden. The shepherd him¬ 
self, though he had good reason to believe that 
the bag held nothing but flaxen thread, or else 
the long rolls of strong linen spun from that 
thread, was not quite sure that this trade of weav¬ 
ing, indispensable though it was, could be carried 
on entirely without the help of the Evil One. In 





2 


Silas Marker 


that far-off time superstition clung easily round 
every person or thing that was at all unwonted, 
or even intermittent and occasional merely, like 
the visits of the pedlar or the knife-grinder. No 
one knew where wandering men had their homes 
or their origin; and how was a man to be ex¬ 
plained unless you at least knew somebody who 
knew his father and mother? To the peasants of 
old times, the world outside their own direct ex¬ 
perience was a region of vagueness and mystery: 
to their untravelled thought a state of wandering 
Avas a conception as dim as the winter life of the 
swallows that came back with the spring; and 
even a settler, if he came from distant parts, hard¬ 
ly ever ceased to be viewed with a remnant of 
distrust, which would have prevented any sur¬ 
prise if a long course of inoffensive conduct on his 
part had ended in the commission of a crime; es¬ 
pecially if he had any reputation for knowledge, 
or showed any skill in handicraft. All cleverness, 
whether in the rapid use of that difficult instru¬ 
ment the tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar 
to villagers, was in itself suspicious: honest folks 
born and bred in a visible manner, were mostly 
not over-wise or clever—at least, not beyond such 
a matter as knowing the signs of the weather; 
and the process by which rapidity and dexterity 
of any kind were acquired was so wholly hidden, 
that they partook of the nature of conjuring. In 
this way it came to pass that those scattered linen- 
weavers—emigrants from the town into the coun¬ 
try—were to the last regarded as aliens by their 
rustic neighbours, and usually contracted the ec- 


Silas Marner 


3 


centric habits which belong to a state of loneli¬ 
ness. 

In the early years of this century, such a linen- 
weaver, named Silas Marner, worked at his voca¬ 
tion in a stone cottage that stood among the nutty 
hedgerows near the village of Kaveloe, and not 
far from the edge of a deserted stonepit. The 
questionable sound of Silas's loom, so unlike the 
natural cheerful trotting of the winnowing ma¬ 
chine, or the simpler rhythm of the flail, had a 
half-fearful fascination for the Raveloe boys, who 
would often leave off their nutting or birds'-nest- 
ing to peep in at the window of the stone cottage, 
counter-balancing a certain awe at the mysterious 
action of the loom, by a pleasant sense of scorn¬ 
ful superiority, drawn from the mockery of its 
alternating noises, along with the bent, tread-mill 
attitude of the weaver. But sometimes it hap¬ 
pened that Marner, pausing to adjust an irregu¬ 
larity in his thread, became aware of the small 
scoundrels, and, though chary of his time, he liked 
their intrusion so ill that he would descend from 
his loom, and, opening the door, would fix on them 
a gaze that was always enough to make them 
take to their legs in terror. For how was it pos¬ 
sible to believe that those large brown protuber¬ 
ant eyes in Silas Marner's pale face really saw 
nothing very distinctly that was not close to them, 
and not rather that their dreadful stare could dart 
cramp, or rickets, or a wry mouth at any boy who 
happened to be in the rear? They had, perhaps, 
heard their fathers and mothers hint that Silas 
Marner could cure folk's rheumatism if he had a 


4 


Silas Marner 


mind, and add, still more darkly, that if you could 
only speak the devil fair enough, he might save 
you the cost of the doctor. Such strange lingering 
echoes of the old demon-worship might perhaps 
even now be caught by the diligent listener among 
the grey-haired peasantry; for the rude mind with 
difficulty associates the ideas of power and benig¬ 
nity. A shadowy conception of power that by 
much persuasion can be induced to refrain from 
inflicting harm, is the shape most easily taken by 
the sense of the Invisible in the minds of men who 
have always been pressed close by primitive 
wants, and to whom a life of hard toil has never 
been illuminated by any enthusiastic religious 
faith. To them pain and mishap present a far 
wider range of possibilities than gladness and 
enjoyment: their imagination is almost barren of 
the images that feed desire and hope, but is all 
overgrown by recollections that are a perpetual 
pasture to fear. “Is there anything you can fancy 
that you would like to eat?” I once said to an old 
labouring man, who was in his last illness, and 
who had refused all the food his wife had offered 
him. “No,” he answered, “Fve never been used 
to nothing but common victual, and I can’t eat 
that.” Experience had bred no fancies in him 
that could raise the phantasm of appetite. 

And Raveloe was a village where many of the 
old echoes lingered, undrowned by new voices. 
Not that it was one of those barren parishes lying 
on the outskirts of civilization—inhabited by 
meagre sheep and thinly-scattered shepherds: on 
the contrary, it lay in the rich central plain of 


Silas Marner 


5 


what we are pleased to call Merry England, and 
held farms which, speaking from a spiritual point 
of view, paid highly-desirable tithes. But it was 
nestled in a snug well-wooded hollow, quite an 
hour's journey on horseback from any turnpike, 
where it was never reached by the vibrations of 
the coach-horn, or of public opinion. It was an 
important-looking village, with a fine old church 
and large churchyard in the heart of it, and two 
or three large brick-and-stone homesteads, with 
well-walled orchards and ornamental weather¬ 
cocks, standing close upon the road, and lifting 
more imposing fronts than the rectory, which 
peeped from among the trees on the other side of 
the churchyard;—ia village which showed at once 
the summits of its social life, and told the prac¬ 
tised eye that there was no great park and manor- 
house in the vicinity, but that there were several 
chiefs in Raveloe who could farm badly quite at 
their ease, drawing enough money from their bad 
farming, in those war times,' to live in a rollicking 
fashion, and keep a jolly Christmas, Whitsun, and 
Easter tide. 

It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first 
come to Raveloe; he was then simply a pallid 
young man, with prominent short-sighted brown 
eyes, whose appearance would have had nothing 
strange for people of average culture and experi¬ 
ence, but for the villagers near whom he had come 
to settle it had mysterious peculiarities which cor¬ 
responded with the exceptional nature of his oc- 

^The Napoleonic wars (1796-1815). 



6 


Silas Marner 


cupation, and his advent from an unknown region 
called "‘Northward/' So had his way of life:—he 
invited no comer to step across his door-sill, and 
he never strolled into the village to drink a pint 
at the Rainbow, or to gossip at the wheelwright’s: 
he sought no man or woman, save for the purposes 
of his calling, or in order to supply himself with 
necessaries; and it was soon clear to the Raveloe 
lasses that he would never urge one of them to 
accept him against her will—quite as if he had 
heard them declare that they would never marry 
a dead man come to life again. This view of 
Marner’s personality was not without another 
ground than his pale face and unexampled eyes; 
for Jem Rodney, the mole-catcher, averred that 
one evening as he was returning homeward, he 
saw Silas Marner leaning against a stile with a 
heavy bag on his back, instead of resting the bag 
on the stile as a man in his senses would have 
done; and that, on coming up to him, he saw that 
Marner’s eyes were set like a dead man’s, and 
he spoke to him, and shook him, and his limbs 
were stiff, and his hands clutch’d the bag as if 
they’d been made of iron; but just as he made up 
his mind that the weaver was dead, he came all 
right again, like, as you might say, in the winking 
of an eye, and said “Good night,” and walked off. 
All this Jem swore he had seen, more by token 
that it was the very day he had been mole-catch¬ 
ing on Squire Cass’s land, down by the old saw- 
pit. Some said Marner must have been in a “fit,” 
a word which seemed to explain things otherwise 
incredible; but the argumentative Mr. Macey, 


Silas Marner 


7 


clerk of the parish, shook his head, and asked if 
anybody was ever known to go off in a fit and 
not fall down. A fit was a stroke, wasn’t it? and 
it was in the nature of a stroke to partly take 
away the use of a man’s limbs and throw him on 
the parish, if he’d got no children to look to. No, 
no; it was no stroke that would let a man stand 
on his legs, like a horse between the shafts, and 
then walk off as soon as you can say ‘‘Gee!” But 
there might be such a thing as a man’s soul being 
loose from his body, and going out and in, like a 
bird out of its nest and back; and that was how 
folks got over-wise, for they went to school in this 
shell-less state to those who could teach them 
more than their neighbours could learn with their 
five senses and the parson. And where did Master 
Marner get his knowledge of herbs from—and 
charms too, if he liked to give them away? Jem 
Rodney’s story was no more than what might 
have been expected by anybody who had seen how 
Marner had cured Sally Oates, and made her sleep 
like a baby, when her heart had been beating 
enough to burst her body, for two months and 
more, while she had been under the doctor’s care. 
He might cure more folks if he would; but he was 
worth speaking fair, if it was only to keep him 
from doing you a mischief. 

It was partly to this vague fear that Marner 
was indebted for protecting him from the perse¬ 
cution that his singularities might have drawn 
upon him, but still more to the fact that, the old 
linen-weaver in the neighbouring parish of Tarley 
being dead, his handicraft made him a highly 


8 


Silas Marker 


welcome settler to the richer housewives of the 
district, and even to the more provident cottagers, 
who had their little stock of yarn at the year’s 
end; and their sense of his usefulness would have 
counteracted any repugnance or suspicion which 
was not confirmed by a deficiency in the quality or 
the tale of the cloth he wove for them. And the 
years had rolled on without producing any change 
in the impressions of the neighbours concerning 
Marner, except the change from novelty to habit. 
At the end of fifteen years the Raveloe men said 
just the same things about iSilas Marner as at the 
beginning: they did not say them quite so often, 
but they believed them much more strongly when 
they did say them. There was only one important 
addition which the years had brought: it was that 
Master Marner had laid by a fine sight of money 
somewhere, and that he could buy up “bigger 
men” than himself. 

But while opinion concerning him had remained 
nearly stationary, and his daily habits had pre¬ 
sented scarcely any visible change, Marner’s in¬ 
ward life had been a history and a metamorphosis, 
as that of every fervid nature must be when it 
has fled, or been condemned to solitude. His life, 
before he came to Raveloe, had been filled with 
the, movement, the mental activity, and the close 
fellowship, which, in that day as in this, marked 
the life of an artisan early incorporated in a nar¬ 
row religious sect, where the poorest layman has 
the chance of distinguishing himself by gifts of 
speech, and has, at the very least, the weight of a 
silent voter in the government of his community. 


Silas Marker 


9 


Marner was highly thought of in that little hid¬ 
den world, known to itself as the church assemb¬ 
ling in Lantern Yard; he was believed to be a 
young man of exemplary life and ardent faith; 
and a peculiar interest had been centred in him 
ever since he had fallen, at a prayer-meeting, into 
a mysterious rigidity and suspension of conscious¬ 
ness, which, lasting for an hour or more, had been 
mistaken for death. To have sought a medical 
explanation for this phenomenon would have been 
held by Silas himself, as well as by his minister 
and fellow-members, a wilful self-exclusion from 
the spiritual significance that might lie therein. 
Silas was evidently a brother selected for a pe¬ 
culiar discipline, and though the effort to interpret 
this discipline was discouraged by the absence, on 
his part, of any spiritual vision during his out¬ 
ward trance, yet it was believed by himself and 
others that its effect was seen in an accession of 
light and fervour. A less truthful man than he 
might have been tempted into the subsequent cre¬ 
ation of a vision in the form of resurgent memory; 
a less sane man might have believed in such a 
creation; but Silas was both sane and honest, 
though, as with many honest and fervent men, 
culture had not defined any channels for his sense 
of mystery, and so it spread itself over the proper 
pathway of inquiry and knowledge. He had in¬ 
herited from his mother some acquaintance Vv^ith 
medicinal herbs and their preparation—a little 
store of wisdom which she had imparted to him 
as a solemn bequest—but at late years he had had 
doubts about the lawfulness of applying this 


10 


Silas Marner 


knowledge, believing that herbs could have no ef¬ 
ficacy without prayer, and that prayer might suf¬ 
fice without herbs; so that the inherited delight 
to wander through the fields in search of foxglove 
and dandelion and coltsfoot, began to wear to him 
the character of a temptation. 

Among the members of his church there was 
one young man, a little older than himself, with 
whom he had long lived in such close friendship 
that it was the custom of their Lantern Yard 
brethren to call them David and Jonathan. The 
real name of the friend was William Dane, and he, 
too, was regarded as a shining instance of youth¬ 
ful piety, though somewhat given to over-severity 
towards weaker brethren, and to be so dazzled 
by his own light as to hold himself wiser than 
his teachers. But whatever blemishes others 
might discern in William, to his friend’s mind 
he was faultless; for Marner had one of those 
impressible self-doubting natures which, at an 
inexoerienced age, admire imperativeness and lean 
on contradiction. The expression of trusting sim¬ 
plicity in Marner’s face, heightened by that ab¬ 
sence of special observation, that defenceless, 
deer-like gaze which belongs to large prominent 
eyes, was strongly contrasted by the self-compla¬ 
cent suppression of inward triumph that lurked 
in the narrow slanting eyes and compressed lips 
of William Dane. One of the most frequent topics 
of conversation between the two friends was As¬ 
surance of salvation: Silas confessed that he 
could never arrive at anything higher than hope 
mingled with fear, and listened with longing won- 


Silas Marker 


11 


der when William declared that he had poss^essed 
unshaken assurance ever since, in the period of 
his conversion, he had dreamed that he Siaw the 
words “calling and election sure” standing by 
themselves on a white page in the open Bible. 
Such colloquies have occupied many a pair of pale- 
faced weavers, whose unnurtured souls have been 
like young winged things, fluttering forsaken in 
the twilight. 

It had seemed to the unsuspecting Silas that 
the friendship had suffered no chill even from his 
formation of another attachment of a closer kind. 
For some months he had been engaged to a young 
servant-woman, waiting only for a little increase 
in their mutual savings in order to their marriage; 
and it was a great delight to him that Sarah did 
not object to William’s occasional presence in their 
Sunday interviews. It was at this point in their 
history that Silas’s cataleptic fit occurred dur¬ 
ing the prayer-meeting; and amidst the various 
queries and expressions of interest addressed to 
him by his fellow-members, William’s suggestion 
alone jarred with the general sympathy towards 
a brother thus singled out for special dealings. 
He observed that, to him, this trance looked more 
like a visitation of Satan than a proof of divine 
favour, and exhorted his friend to see that he hid 
no accursed thing within his soul. Silas, feeling 
bound to accept rebuke and admonition as a 
brotherly office, felt no resentment, but only pain, 
at his friend’s doubts concerning him; and to this 
was soon added some anxiety at the perception 
that Sarah’s manner towards him began to ex- 


12 


Silas Marker 


hibit a strange fluctuation between an effort at an 
increased manifestation of regard and involun¬ 
tary signs of shrinking and dislike. He asked 
her if she wished to break off their engagement; 
but she denied this: their engagement was known 
to the church, and had been recognized in the 
prayer-meeting; it could not be broken off without 
strict investigation, and Sarah could render no 
reason that would be sanctioned by the feeling of 
the community. At this time the senior deacon 
was taken dangerously ill, and, being a childless 
widower, he was tended night and day by some of 
the younger brethren or sisters. Silas frequently 
took his turn in the night-watching with William, 
the one relieving the other at two in the morning. 
The old man, contrary to expectation, seemed to 
be on the way to recovery, when one night Silas, 
sitting up by his bedside, observed that his usually 
audible breathing had ceased. The candle was 
burning low, and he had to lift it to see the pa¬ 
tient's face distinctly. Examination convinced 
him that the deacon was dead—^had been dead 
some time, for the limbs were rigid. Silas asked 
himself if he had been asleep, and looked at the 
clock: it was already four in the morning. How 
was it that William had not come? In much anx¬ 
iety he went to seek for help, and soon there were 
several friends assembled in the house, the minis¬ 
ter among them, while Silas went away to his 
work, wishing he could have met William to know 
the reason of his non-appearance. But at six 
o’clock, as he was thinking of going to seek his 
friend, William came, and with him the minister. 


Silas Marker 


13 


They came to summon him to Lantern Yard, to 
meet the church members there; and to his inquiry 
concerning the cause of the summons the only 
reply was, ''You will hear.’' Nothing further was 
said until Silas was seated in the vestry, in front 
of the minister, with the eyes of those who to 
him represented God’s people fixed solemnly upon 
him. Then the minister, taking out a pocket- 
knife, showed it to Silas, and asked him if he 
knew where he had left that knife? Silas said, 
he did not know that he had left it anywhere out 
of his own pocket—but he was trembling at this 
strange interrogation. He was then exhorted not 
to hide his sin, but to confess and repent. The 
knife had been found in the bureau by the depart¬ 
ed deacon’s bedside—found in the place where 
the little bag of church money had lain, which the 
minister himself had seen the day before. Some 
hand had removed that bag; and whose hand could 
it be, if not that of the man to whom the knife 
belonged? For some time Silas was mute with 
astonishment: then he said, "God will clear me: 
I know nothing about the knife being there, or 
the money being gone. Search me and my dwell¬ 
ing : you will find nothing but three pound five of 
my own savings, which William Dane knows I 
have had these six months.” At this William 
groaned, but the minister said, "The proof is 
heavy against you, brother Marner. The money 
was taken in the night last past, and no man was 
with our departed brother but you, for William 
Dane declares to us that he was hindered by sud¬ 
den sickness from going to take his place as usual. 


14 


Silas Marker 


and you yourself said that he had not come; and, 
moreover, you neglected the dead body.” 

“I must have slept,” said Silas. Then, after a 
pause, he added, “Or I must have had another 
visitation like that which you have all seen me 
under, so that the thief must have come and gone 
while I was not in the body, but out of the body. 
But, I say again, search me and my dwelling, for 
I have been nowhere else.” 

The search was made, and it ended—in William 
Dane's finding the well-known bag, empty, tucked 
behind the chest of drawers in Silas’s chamber! 
On this William exhorted his friend to confess, 
and not to hide his sin any longer. Silas turned 
a look of keen reproach on him, and said, 
“William, for nine years that we have gone in 
and out together, have you ever known me tell a 
lie? But God will clear me.” 

“Brother,” said William, “how do I know what 
you may have done in the secret chambers of your 
heart, to give Satan an advantage over you ?” 

Silas was still looking at his friend. Suddenly 
a deep flush came over his face, and he was about 
to speak impetuously, when he seemed checked 
again by some inward shock, that sent the flush 
back and made him tremble. But at last he spoke 
feebly, looking at William. 

“I remember noAv—the knife wasn’t in my 
pocket.” 

William said, “I know nothing of what you 
mean.” The other persons present, however, be¬ 
gan to inquire where Silas meant to say that the 
knife was, but he would give no further explana- 


Silas Marner 


15 


tion: he only said, “I am sore stricken; I can say 
nothing. God will clear me.” 

On their return to the vestry there was further 
deliberation. Any resort to legal measures for 
ascertaining the culprit was contrary to the prin¬ 
ciples of the church: prosecution was held by them 
to be forbidden to Christians, even if it had been 
a case in which there was no scandal to the com¬ 
munity. But they were bound to take other meas¬ 
ures for finding out the truth, and they resolved 
on praying and drawing lots. This resolution can 
be a ground of surprise only to those who are 
untacquainted with that obscure religious life 
which has gone on in the alleys of our towns. 
Silas knelt with his brethren, relying on his own 
innocence being certified by immediate divine 
interference, but feeling that there was sorrow 
and mourning behind for him even then—that his 
trust in man had been cruelly bruised. The lots 
declared that Silas Marner was guilty. He was 
solemnly suspended from church-membership, and 
called upon to render up the stolen money: only 
on confession, as the sign of repentance, could he 
be received once more within the fold of the 
church. Marner listened in silence. At last, when 
every one rose to depart, he went towards William 
Dane and said, in a voice shaken by agitation— 

‘The last time I remember using my knife, was 
when I took it out to cut a strap for you. I don’t 
remember putting it in my pocket again. You 
stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay 
the sin at my door. But you may prosper, for all 
that; there is no just God that governs the earth 


16 


Silas Marker 


righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness 
against the innocent.” 

There was a general shudder at this blasphemy. 

William said meekly, 'T leave our brethren to 
judge whether this is the voice of Satan or not. 
I can do nothing but pray for you, Silas.” 

Poor Marner went out with that despair in his 
soul—that shaken trust in God and man, which 
is little short of madness to a loving nature. In 
the bitterness of his wounded spirit, he said to 
himself, ''She will cast me off too.” And he re¬ 
flected that, if she did not believe the testimony 
against him, her whole faith must be upset as his 
was. To people accustomed to reason about the 
forms in which their religious feeling has incor¬ 
porated itself, it is difficult to enter into that 
simple, untaught state of mind in which the form 
and the feeling have never been severed by an 
act of reflection. We are apt to think it inevita¬ 
ble that a man in Marner’s position should have 
begun to question the validity of an appeal to the 
divine judgment by drawing lots; but to him this 
would have been an efl'ort of independent thought 
such as he had never known; and he must have 
made the effort at a moment when all his energies 
were turned into the anguish of disappointed 
faith. If there is an angel who records the sor¬ 
rows of men as well as their sins, he knows how 
many and deep are the sorrows that spring from 
false ideas for which no man is culpable. 

Marner went home, and for a whole day sat 
alone, stunned by despair, without any impulse 
to go to Sarah and attempt to win her belief in 


Silas Marner 


17 


his innocence. The second day he took refuge 
from benumbing unbelief, by getting into his loom 
and working away as usual; and before many 
hours were past, the minister and one of the dea¬ 
cons came to him with the message from Sarah, 
that she held her engagement to him at an end. 
Silas received the message mutely, and then turned 
away from the messengers to work at his loom 
again. In little more than a month from that time, 
Sarah was married to William Dane; and not long 
afterwards it was known to the brethren in Lan¬ 
tern Yard that Silas Marner had departed from 
the town. 


CHAPTER II 


Even people whose lives have been made various 
by learning, sometimes find it hard to keep a fast 
hold on their habitual views of life, on their faith 
in the Invisible—nay, on the sense that their past 
joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they 
are suddenly transported to a new land, where the 
beings around them know nothing of their history, 
and share none of their ideas—where their mother 
earth shows another lap, and human life has other 
forms than those on which their souls have been 
nourished. Minds that have been unhinged from 
their old faith and love, have perhaps sought this 
Lethean’ influence of exile, in which the past be¬ 
comes dreamy because its symbols have all van¬ 
ished, and the present too is dreamy because it is 
linked with no memories. But even their experi¬ 
ence may hardly enable them thoroughly to im¬ 
agine what was the effect on a simple weaver like 
Silas Marner, when he left his own country and 
people and came to settle in Raveloe. Nothing 
could be more unlike his native town, set within 
sight of the widespread hill-sides, than this low, 
wooded region, where he felt hidden even from 
the heavens by the screening trees and hedgerows. 
There was nothing here, when he rose in the deep 
morning quiet and looked out on the dewey bram¬ 
bles and rank tufted grass, that seemed to have 
any relation with that life centering in Lantern 
Yard, which had once been to him the altar-place 

’From Letlie. a river of Hades, whose water when drunk 
cnnsed forgetfulness of the past. 

[ 18 ] 



Silas Marker 


19 


of high dispensations. The whitewashed walls, 
the little pews where well-known figures entered 
with a subdued rustling, and where first one well- 
known voice and then another, pitched in a pecul¬ 
iar key of petition, uttered phrases at once occult 
and familiar, like the amulet worn on the heart; 
the pulpit where the minister delivered unques¬ 
tioned doctrine, and swayed to and fro, and hand¬ 
led the book in a long-accustomed manner; the 
very pauses between the couplets of the hymn, as 
it was given out, and the recurrent swell of voices 
in song: these things had been the channel of 
divine influences to Marner—they were the fos¬ 
tering home of his religious emotions—they were 
Christianity and God’s kingdom upon earth. A 
weaver who finds hard words in his hymn-book 
knows nothing of abstraction; as the little child 
knows nothing of parental love, but only knows 
one face and one lap towards which it stretches its 
arms for refuge and nurture. 

And what could be more unlike that Lantern 
Yard world than the world in Raveloe?—orchards 
looking lazy with neglected plenty; the large 
church in the wide church-yard, which men gazed 
at lounging at their own doors in service-time; 
the purple-faced farmers jogging along the lanes 
or turning in at the Rainbow ; homesteads, where 
men supped heavily and slept in the light of the 
evening hearth, and where women seemed to be 
laying up a stock of linen for the life to come. 
There were no lips in Raveloe from which a word 
could fall that would stir Silas Marner’s benumbed 
faith to a sense of pain. In the early ages of the 


20 


Silas Marker 


world, we know, it was believed that each terri¬ 
tory was inhabited and ruled by its own divinities, 
so that a man could cross the bordering heights 
and be out of the reach of the native gods, whose 
presence was confined to the streams and the 
groves and the hills among which he had lived 
from his birth. And poor Silas was vaguely consci¬ 
ous of something not unlike the feeling of primi¬ 
tive men, when they fled thus, in fear or in sul¬ 
lenness, from the face of an unpropitious deity. 
It seemed to him that the Power in which he had 
vainly trusted in among the streets and at the 
prayer-meetings, was very far away from this 
land in which he had taken refuge, where men 
lived in careless abundance, knowing and needing 
nothing of that trust, which, for him, had been 
turned to bitterness. The little light he possessed 
spread its beams so narrowly, that frustrated be¬ 
lief was a curtain broad enough to create for him 
the blackness of night. 

His first movement after the shock had been to 
work in his loom; and he went on with this un¬ 
remittingly, never asking himself why, now he 
was come to Raveloe, he worked far into the night 
to finish the tale of Mrs. Osgood’s table-linen 
sooner than she expected—without contemplating 
beforehand the money she would put into his hand 
for the work. He seemed to weave, like the spider, 
from pure impulse, without reflection. Every 
man’s work, pursued steadily, tends in this way 
to become an end in itself, and so to bridge over 
the loveless chasms of his life. Silas’s hand satis¬ 
fied itself with throwing the shuttle, and his eye 


Silas Marner 


21 


1 

with seeing the little squares in the cloth complete 
themselves under his effort. Then there were the 
calls of hunger; and Silas, in his solitude, had to 
provide his own breakfast, dinner, and supper, 
to fetch his own water from the well, and put his 
own kettle on the fire; and all these immediate 
promptings helped, along with the weaving, to 
reduce his life to the unquestioning activity of a 
spinning insect. He hated the thought of the 
past; there was nothing that called out his love 
and fellowship toward the strangers he had come 
amongst; and the future was all dark, for there 
was no Unseen Love that cared for him. Thought 
was arrested by utter bewilderment, now its old 
narrow pathway was closed, and affection seemed 
to have died under the bruise that had fallen on 
its keenest nerves. 

But at last Mrs. Osgood’s table-linen was fin¬ 
ished, and Silas was paid in gold. His earnings 
in his native town, where he worked for a whole¬ 
sale dealer, had been after a lower rate; he had 
been paid weekly, and of his weekly earnings a 
large proportion had gone to objects of piety and 
charity. Now, for the first time in his life, he had 
five bright guineas put into his hand; no man ex¬ 
pected a share of them, and he loved no man that 
he should offer him a share. But what were the 
guineas to him who saw no vista beyond count¬ 
less days of weaving? It was needless for him to 
ask that, for it was pleasant to him to feel them 
in his palm, and look at their bright faces, which 
were all his own: it was another element of life, 
like the weaving and the satisfaction of hunger, 


22 


Silas Marker 


subsisting quite aloof from the life of belief and 
love from which he had been cut off. The weav¬ 
er’s hand had known the touch of hard-won money 
even before the palm had grown to its full 
breadth; for twenty years, mysterious money had 
stood to him as the symbol of earthly good, and 
the immediate object of toil. He had seemed to 
love it little in the years when every penny had 
its purpose for him; for he loved the purpose 
then. But now, when all purpose was gone, that 
habit of looking towards the money and grasping 
it with a sense of fulfilled effort made a loam that 
was deep enough for the seeds of desire; and as 
Silas walked homeward across the fields in the 
twilight, he drew out the money and thought it 
was brighter in the gathering gloom. 

About this time an incident happened which 
seemed to open a possibility of some fellowship 
with his neighbours. One day, taking a pair of 
shoes to be mended, he saw the cobbler’s wife 
seated by the fire, suffering from the terrible 
symptoms of heart-disease and dropsy, which he 
had witnessed as the precursors of his mother’s 
death. He felt a rush of pity at the mingled sight 
and remembrance, and, recalling the relief his 
mother had found from a simple preparation of 
foxglove, he promised Sally Oates to bring her 
something that would ease her, since the doctor 
did her no good. In this office of charity, Silas 
felt, for the first time since he had come to Rav- 
eloe, a sense of unity between his past and pres¬ 
ent life, which might have been the beginning of 
his rescue from the insect-like existence into 


Silas Marker 


23- 


which his nature had shrunk. But Sally Oates’s 
disease had raised her into a personage of much 
interest and importance among the neighbours, 
and the fact of her having found relief from drink¬ 
ing Silas Marner’s “stuff” became a matter of 
general discourse. When Doctor Kimble gave 
physic, it was natural that it should have an ef¬ 
fect; but when a weaver, who came from nobodj^ 
knew where, worked wonders with a bottle of 
brown waters, the occult character of the process 
was evident. Such a sort of thing had not been 
known since the Wise Woman at Tarley died; and 
she had charms as well as “stuff” : everybody went 
to her when their children had fits. Silas Marner 
must be a person of the same sort, for how did he 
know what would bring back Sally Oates’s breath, 
if he didn’t know a fine sight more than that? The 
Wise Woman had words that she muttered to 
herself, so that you couldn’t hear what they were, 
and if she tied a bit of red thread round the child’s 
toe the while, it would keep off the water in the 
head. There were women in Raveloe, at that 
present time, who had worn one of the Wise 
Woman’s little bags round their necks, and, in 
consequence, had never had an idiot child, as Ann 
Coulter had. Silas Marner could very likely do 
as much, and more; and now it was all clear how 
he should have come from unknown parts, and 
be so “comical-looking.” But Sally Oates must 
mind and not tell the doctor, for he would be sure 
to set his face against Marner: he was always 
angry about the Wise Woman, and used to threat- 


24 


Silas Marner 


en those who went to her that they should have 
none of his help any more. 

Silas now found himself and his cottage sud¬ 
denly beset by mothers who wanted him to charm 
away the whooping-cough, or bring back the milk, 
and by men who wanted stuff against the rheu¬ 
matics or the knots in the hands; and, to secure 
themselves against a refusal, the applicants 
brought silver in their palms. Silas might have 
driven a profitable trade in charms as well as in 
his small list of drugs; but money on this condi¬ 
tion was no temptation to him: he had never 
known an impulse towards falsity, and he drove 
one after another away with growing irritation, 
for the news of him as a wise man had spread even 
to Tarley, and it was long before people ceased 
to take long walks for the sake of asking his aid. 
But the hope in his wisdom was at length changed 
into dread, for no one believed him when he said 
he knew no charms and could work no cures, and 
every man and woman who had an accident or a 
new attack after applying to him, set the mis¬ 
fortune down to Master Marner's ill-will and irri¬ 
tated glances. Thus it came to pass that his move¬ 
ment of pity towards Sally Oates, which had given 
him a transient sense of brotherhood, heightened 
the repulsion between him and his neighbours, 
and made his isolation more complete. 

Gradually the guineas, the crowns, and the half- 
crowns, grew to a heap, and Marner drew less 
and less for his own wants, trying to solve the 
problem of keeping himself strong enough to work 
sixteen hours a day on as small an outlay as pos- 


Silas Marner 


25 


sible. Have not men, shut up in solitary impris¬ 
onment, found an interest in marking the mo¬ 
ments by straight strokes of a certain length on 
the wall, until the growth of the sum of straight 
strokes, arranged, in triangles, has become a mas¬ 
tering purpose? Do we not wile away moments 
of inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some 
trivial movement or sound, until the repetition 
has bred a want, which is incipient habit? That 
will help us to understand how the love of accum¬ 
ulating money grows an absorbing passion in men 
whose imaginations, even in the very beginning 
of their hoard, showed them no purpose beyond 
it. Marner wanted the heaps of ten to grow into 
a square, and then into a larger square; and every 
added guinea, while it was itself a satisfaction, 
bred a new desire. In this strange world, made 
a hopeless riddle to him, he might, if he had had 
a less intense nature, have sat weaving, weaving 
—looking towards the end of his pattern, or to¬ 
wards the end of his web, till he forgot the riddle, 
and everything else but his immediate sensations; 
but the money had come to mark off his weaving 
into periods, and the money not only grew, but it 
remained with him. He began to think it was 
conscious of him, as his loom was, and he would 
on no account have exchanged those coins, which 
had become his familiars, for other coins with un¬ 
known faces. He handled them, he counted them, 
till their form and colour were like the satisfac¬ 
tion of a thirst to him; but it was only in the 
night, when his work was done, that he drew them 
out to enjoy their companionship. He had taken 


26 


Silas Marner 


up some bricks in his floor underneath his loom, 
and here he had made a hole in which he set the 
iron pot that contained his guineas and silver 
coins, covering the bricks with sand whenever he 
replaced them. Not that the idea of being robbed 
presented itself often or strongly to his mind : 
hoarding was common in country districts in those 
days; there were old labourers in the parish of 
Raveloe who were known to have their savings by 
them, probably inside their flock-beds; but their 
rustic neighbours, though not all of them as hon¬ 
est as their ancestors in the days of King Alfred, 
had not imaginations bold enough to lay a plan 
of burglary. How could they have spent the 
money in their own village without betraying 
themselves? They would be obliged to “run 
away”—a course as dark and dubious as a balloon 
journey. 

So, year after year, Silas Marner had lived in 
this solitude, his guineas rising in the iron pot, 
and his life narrowing and hardening itself more 
and more into a mere pulsation of desire and sat¬ 
isfaction that had no relation to any other being. 
His life had reduced itself to the mere functions 
of weaving and hoarding, without any contem¬ 
plation of an end towards which the functions 
tended. The same sort of process has perhaps 
been undergone by wiser men, when they have 
been cut off from faith and love—only, instead 
of a loom and a heap of guineas, they have had 
some erudite research, some ingenious project, 
or some well-knit theory. Strangely Marner’s 
face and figure shrank and bent themselves into 


Silas Marker 


27 


-a constant mechanical relation to the objects of 
his life, so that he produced the same sort of im¬ 
pression as a handle or a crooked tube, which has 
no meaning standing apart. The prominent eyes 
that used to look trusting and dreamy, now looked 
as if they had been made to see only one kind of 
thing that was very small, like tiny grain, for 
which they hunted everywhere: and he was so 
withered and yellow, that, though he was not yet 
forty, the children always called him “Old Master 
Marner.” 

Yet even in this stage of withering a little in¬ 
cident happened, which showed that the sap of af¬ 
fection was not all gone. It was one of his daily 
tasks to fetch his water from a well a couple of 
fields off, and for this purpose, ever since he came 
to Raveloe, he had had a brown earthenware pot, 
which he held as his most precious utensil, among 
the very few conveniences he had granted himself. 
It had been his companion for twelve years, al¬ 
ways standing on the same spot, always lending 
its handle to him in the early morning, so that 
its form had an expression for him of willing 
helpfulness, and the impress of its handle on his 
palm gave a satisfaction mingled with that of 
having the fresh clear water. One day as he was 
returning from the well, he stumbled against the 
step of the stile, and his brown pot, faliing with 
force against the stones that overarched the dit.di 
below him, was broken in three pieces. Silas 
picked up the pieces and carried them home with 
grief in his heart. The brown pot could never 
be of use to him any more, but he stuck the bits 


28 


Silas Marner 


together and propped the ruin in its old place 
for a memorial. 

This is the history of Silas Marner, until the 
fifteenth year after he came to Raveloe. The 
livelong day he sat in his loom, his ear filled with 
its monotony, his eyes bent close down on the slow 
growth of sameness in the brownish web, his mus¬ 
cles moving with such even repetition that their 
pause seemed almost as much a constraint as the 
holding of his breath. But at night came his 
revelry: at night he closed his shutters, and made 
fast his doors, and drew out his gold. Long ago 
the heap of coins had become too large for the 
iron pot to hold them, and he had made for them 
two thick leather bags, which wasted no room in 
their resting-plac'e, but lent themselves flexibly to 
every corner. How the guineas shone as they 
came pouring out of the dark leather mouths! 
The silver bore no large proportion in amount to 
the gold, because the long pieces of linen which 
formed his chief work were always partly paid 
for in gold, and out of the silver he supplied his 
own bodily wants, choosing always the shillings 
and sixpences to spend in this way. He loved 
the guineas best, but he would not change the 
silver—^the crowns and half-crowns that were his 
own earnings, begotten by his labour; he loved 
them all. He spread them out in heaps and bathed 
his hands in them; then he counted them and set 
them up in regular piles, and felt their rounded 
outline between his thumb and fingers, and 
thought fondly of the guineas that were only half 
earned by the work in his loom, as if they had 


Silas Marner 


29 


been unborn children—thought of the guineas that 
were coming slowly through the coming years, 
through all his life, which spread far away before 
him, the end quite hidden by countless days of 
weaving. No wonder his thoughts were still with 
his loom and his money when he made his jour¬ 
neys through the fields and the lanes to fetch and 
carry home his work, so that his steps never wan¬ 
dered to the hedge-banks and the lane-side in 
search of the once familiar herbs: these too be¬ 
longed to the past, from which his life had shrunk 
away, like a rivulet that has sunk far down from 
the grassy fringe of its old breadth into a little 
shivering thread, that cuts a groove for itself in 
the barren sand. 

But about the Christmas of that fifteenth year, 
a second great change came over Marner’s life, 
and his history became blent in a singular manner 
with the life of his neighbours. 


CHAPTER III 


The greatest man in Raveloe' was Squire Cass, 
who lived in the lai:ge red house with the hand¬ 
some flight of stone steps in front and the high 
stables behind it, nearly opposite the church. He 
was only one among several landed parishioners, 
but he alone was honoured with the title of Squire; 
for though Mr. Osgood’s family was also under¬ 
stood to be of timeless origin—the Raveloe imagi¬ 
nation having never ventured back to that fear¬ 
ful blank when there were no Osgoods—still, he 
merely owned the farm he occupied; whereas 
Squire Cass had a tenant or two, who complained 
of the game to him quite as if he had been a lord. 

It was still that glorious war-time which was 
felt to be a peculiar favour of Providence towards 
the landed interest, and the fall of prices had not 
yet come to carry the race of small squires and 
yeomen down that road to ruin for which extrava¬ 
gant habits and bad husbandry were plentifully 
anointing their wheels. I am speaking now in rela¬ 
tion to Raveloe and the parishes that resembled it; 
for our old-fashioned country life had many differ¬ 
ent aspects, as all life must have when it is spread 
over a various surface, and breathed on var¬ 
iously by multitudinous currents, from the winds 
of heaven to the thoughts of men, which are for¬ 
ever moving and crossing each other with in¬ 
calculable results. Raveloe lay low among the 
bushy trees and the rutted lanes, aloof from the 
currents of industrial energy and Puritan earnest¬ 
ness : the rich ate and drank freely, and accepted 
[ 80 ] 


Silas Marner 


31 


gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysterious¬ 
ly in respectable families, and the poor thought 
that the rich were entirely in the right of it to 
lead a jolly life; besides, their feasting caused a 
multiplication of orts, which were the heirlooms 
of the poor. Betty Jay scented the boiling of 
Squire Cass’s hams, but her longing was arrested 
by the unctuous liquor in which they were boiled; 
and when the seasons brought round the great 
merry-makings, they were regarded on all hands 
as a fine thing for the poor. For the Raveloe 
feasts were like the rounds of beef and the barrels 
of ale—they were on a large scale, and lasted a 
good while, especially in the winter-time. When 
ladies had packed up their best gowns and top- 
knots in bandboxes, and had incurred the risk of 
fording streams on pillions with the precious bur¬ 
den in rainy or snowy weather, when there was 
no knowing how high the water would rise, it was 
not to be supposed that they looked forward to a 
brief pleasure. On this ground it was always con¬ 
trived in the dark seasons, when there was little 
work to be done, and the hours were long, that sev¬ 
eral neighbors should keep open house in suc¬ 
cession. So soon as Squire Cass’s standing dishes 
diminished in plenty and freshness, his guests had 
nothing to do but to walk a little higher up the 
village to Mr. Osgood’s, at the Orchards, and they 
found hams and chines uncut, pork-pies with the 
scent of the fire in them, spun butter in all its 
freshness—everything, in fact, that appetites at 
leisure could desire, in perhaps greater perfec- 


32 


Silas Marner 


tion, though not in greater abundance, than at 
Squire Cass’s. 

For the Squire’s wife had died long ago, and the 
Red House was without that presence of the wife 
and mother which is the fountain of wholesome 
love and fear in parlour and kitchen; and this 
helped to account not only for there being more 
profusion than finished excellence in the holiday 
provisions, but also for the frequency with which 
the proud Squire condescended to preside in the 
parlour of the Rainbow rather than under the 
shadow of his own dark wainscot; perhaps, also, 
for the fact that his sons had turned out rather ill. 
Raveloe was not a place where moral censure was 
severe, but it was thought a weakness in the 
Squire that he had kept all his sons at home in 
idleness; and though some licence was to be al¬ 
lowed to young men whose fathers could afford 
it, people shook their heads at the courses of the 
second son, Dunstan, commonly called Dunsey 
Cass, whose taste for swopping and betting might 
turn out to be a sowing of something worse than 
wild oats. To be sure, the neighbours said, it was 
no matter what became of Dunsey^—a spiteful 
jeering fellow, who seemed to enjoy his drink the 
more when other people went dry—always pro¬ 
vided that his doings did not bring trouble on a 
family like Squire Cass’s, with a monument in the 
church, and tankards older than King George. But 
it would be a thousand pities if Mr. Godfrey, the 
eldest, a fine open-faced good-natured young man 
who was to come into the land some day, should 
take to going along the same road with his broth- 


Silas Marner 


33 


er, as he had seemed to do of late. If he went on in 
that way, he would lose Miss Nancy Lammeter; 
for it was well known that she had looked very 
shyly on him ever since last Whitesuntide twelve- 
month, when there was so much talk about his 
being away from home days and days together. 
There was something wrong, more than common 
—that was quite clear; for Mr. Godfrey didn't 
look half so fresh-coloured and open as he used to 
do. At one time everybody was saying, what a 
handsome couple he and Miss Nancy Lammeter 
would make! and if she could come to be mistress 
at the Red House, there would be a fine change, 
for the Lammeters had been brought up in that 
way, and they never suffered a pinch of salt to be 
wasted, and yet everybody in their household had 
of the best, according to his place. Such a daugh¬ 
ter-in-law would be a saving to the old iSquire, if 
she never brought a penny to her fortune, for it 
was to be feared that, notwithstanding his incom¬ 
ings, there were more holes in his pocket than the 
one where he put his own hand in. But if Mr. 
Godfrey didn't turn over a new leaf, he might say 
“Goodby" to Miss Nancy Lammeter. 

It was the once hopeful Godfrey who was stand¬ 
ing, with his hands in his side-pockets and his 
back to the fire, in the dark wainscoted parlour, 
one late November afternoon in that fifteenth 
year of Silas Marner's life at Raveloe. The fad¬ 
ing grey light fell dimly on the walls decorated 
with guns, whips, and foxes' brushes, on coats 
and hats flung on the chairs, on tankards sending 
forth a scent of flat ale, and on a half-choked fire. 


34 


Silas Marker 


with pipes propped up in the chimney-corners: 
signs of a domestic life destitute of any hallowing 
charm, with which the look of gloomy vexation 
on Godfrey’s blond face was in sad accordance. 
He seemed to be waiting and listening for some 
one’s approach, and presently the sound of a heavy 
step, with an accompanying whistle, was heard 
across the large empty entrance-hall. 

The door opened, and a thick-set, heavy-looking 
young man entered, with the flushed face and the 
gratuitously elated bearing which mark the first 
stage of intoxication. It was Dunsey, and at the 
sight of him Godfrey’s face parted with some of 
its gloom to take on the more active expression of 
hatred. The handsome brown spaniel that lay 
on the hearth retreated under the chair in the 
chimney-corner. 

‘Well, Master Godfrey, what do you want with 
me?” said Dunsey, in a mocking tone. “You’re 
my elders and betters, you know; I was obliged 
to come when you sent for me.” 

“Why, this is what I want—and just shake 
yourself sober and listen, will you ?” said Godfrey, 
savagely. He had himself been drinking more 
than was good for him, trying to turn his gloom 
into uncalculating anger. “I want to tell you, I 
must hand over that rent of Fowler’s to the 
Squire, or else tell him I gave it you; for he’s 
threatening to distrain' for it, and it’ll all be out 
soon, whether I tell him or not. He said, just now, 
before he went out, he should send word to Cox to 


'Distraiii=t() seize personal property for debt. 



Silas Marker 


35 


distrain, if Fowler didn’t come and pay up his ar¬ 
rears this week. The Squire’s short o’ cash, and 
in no humour to stand any nonsense; and you 
know what he threatened, if ever he found you 
making away with his money again. So, see and 
get the money, and pretty quickly, will you?” 

“Oh!” said Dunsey, sneeringly, coming nearer 
to his brother and looking him in his face. “Sup¬ 
pose, now, you get the money yourself, and save 
me the trouble, eh? Since you was so kind as to 
hand it over to me, you’ll not refuse me the kind¬ 
ness to pay it back for me: it was your brotherly 
love made you do it, you know.” 

Godfrey bit his lips and clenched his fist. “Don’t 
come near me with that look, else I’ll knock you 
down.” 

“Oh, no, you won’t,” said Dunsey, turning away 
on his heel, however. “Because I’m such a good- 
natured brother, you know. I might get you turn¬ 
ed out of house and home, and cut off with a shill¬ 
ing any day. I might tell the Squire how his 
handsome son was married to that nice young wo¬ 
man, Molly Barren, and was very unhappy be¬ 
cause he couldn’t live with his drunken wife, and 
I should slip into your place as comfortable as 
could be. But you see, I don’t do it—I’m so easy 
and good-natured. You’ll take any trouble for 
me. You’ll get the hundred pounds for me—I 
know you will.” 

“How can I get the money?” said Godfrey, 
quivering. “I haven’t a shilling to bless myself 
with. And it’s a lie that you’d slip into my place: 
you’d get yourself turned out too, that’s all. For 


36 


Silas Marner 


if you begin telling tales, I’ll follow. Bob’s my 
father’s favourite—you know that very well. He’d 
only think himself well rid of you.” 

“Never mind,” said Dunsey, nodding his head 
sideways as he looked out of the window. “It ’ud 
be very pleasant to me to go in your company— 
you’re such a handsome brother, and we’ve always 
been so fond of quarrelling with one another, I 
shouldn’t know what to do without you. But you’d 
like better for us both to stay at home together; I 
know you would. So you’ll manage to get that 
little sum o’ money, and I’ll bid you good-by, 
though I’m sorry to part.” 

Dunstan was moving off, but Godfrey rushed 
after him and seized him by the arm, saying, 
with an oath, 

“I tell you, I have no money: I can get no 
money.” 

“Borrow of old Kimble.” 

“I tell you, he won’t lend me any more, and I 
shan’t ask him.” 

“Well, then, sell Wildfire.” 

“Yes, that’s easy talking. I must have the 
money directly.” 

“Well, you’ve only got to ride him to the hunt 
to-morrow. There’ll be Bryce and Keating there, 
for sure. You’ll get more bids than one.’' 

“I daresay, and get back home at eight o’clock, 
splashed up to the chin. I’m going to Mrs. Os¬ 
good’s birthday dance.” 

“Oho!” said Dunsey, turning his head on one 
side, and trying to speak in a small mincing treble. 
“And there’s sweet Miss Nancy coming; and we 


Silas Marner 


37 


shall dance with her, and promise never to be 
naughty again, and be taken into favour, and—” 

''Hold your tongue about Miss Nancy, you fool,” 
said Godfrey, turning red, "else I’ll throttle you.” 

"What for?” said Dunsey, still in an artificial 
tone, but taking a whip from the table and beat¬ 
ing the butt-end of it on his palm. "You’ve a very 
good chance. I’d advise you to creep up her sleeve 
again: it ’ud be saving time, if Molly should hap¬ 
pen to take a drop too much laudanum some day, 
and make a widower of you. Miss Nancy wouldn’t 
mind being a second, if she didn’t know it. And 
you’ve got a good-natured brother, who’ll keep 
your secret well, because you’ll be so very obliging 
to him.” 

"I’ll tell you what it is,” said Godfrey, quiver¬ 
ing, and pale again, "my patience is pretty near at 
an end. If you’d a little more sharpness in you, 
you might know that you may urge a man a bit too 
far, and make one leap as easy as another. I don’t 
know but what it is so now: I may as well tell the 
Squire everything myself—I should get you off my 
back, if I got nothing else. And, after all, he’ll 
know some time. She’s been threatening to come 
herself and tell him. So, don’t fiatter yourself 
that your secrecy’s worth any price you choose to 
ask. You drain me of money till I have got noth-. 
ing to pacify her with, and she’ll do as she threat¬ 
ens some day. It’s all one. I’ll tell my father ev¬ 
erything myself, and you may go to the devil.” 

Dunsey perceived that he had overshot his mark, 
and that there was a point at which evqn the hesi- 


38 


Silas Marner 


tating Godfrey might be driven into decision. But 
he said, with an air of unconcern: 

*‘As you please; but I’ll have a draught of ale 
first.” And ringing the bell, he threw himself 
across two chairs, and began to rap the window- 
seat with the handle of his whip. 

Godfrey stood, still with his back to the fire, un¬ 
easily moving his fingers among the contents of 
his side-pockets, and looking at the floor. That 
big muscular frame of his held plenty of animal 
courage, but helped him to no decision when the 
dangers to be braved were such as could neither 
be knocked down nor throttled. His natural ir¬ 
resolution and moral cowardice were exaggerated 
by a position in which dreaded consequences seem¬ 
ed to press equally on all sides, and his irritation 
had no sooner provoked him to defy, Dunstan 
and anticipated all possible betrayals, than the 
miseries he must bring on himself by such a step 
seemed more unendurable to him than the present 
evil. The results of confession were not contin¬ 
gent, they were certain; whereas betrayal was not 
certain. From the near vision of that certainty 
he fell back on suspense and vacillation with a 
sense of repose. The disinherited son of a small 
squire, equally disinclined to dig and to beg, was 
almost as helpless as an uprooted tree, which, by 
the favour of earth and sky, has grown to a hand¬ 
some bulk on the spot where it first shot upward. 
Perhaps it would have been possible to think of 
digging with some cheerfulness if Nancy Lam- 
meter were to be won on those terms; but since he 
must irrevocably lose her as well as the inheri- 


Silas Marker 


39 


tance, and must break every tie but the one that 
degraded him and left him without motive for try¬ 
ing to recover his better self, he could imagine no 
future for himself on the other side of confession 
but that of “ 'listing for a soldier”—the most des¬ 
perate step, short of suicide, in the eyes of re¬ 
spectable families. No! he would rather trust to 
casualties than to his own resolve—rather go on 
sitting at the feast and sipping the wine he loved, 
though with the sword hanging over him and ter¬ 
ror in his heart, than rush away into the cold 
darkness where there was no pleasure left. The 
utmost concession to Dunstan about the horse be¬ 
gan to seem easy, compared with the fulfillment 
of his own threat. But his pride would not let 
him recommence the conversation otherwise than 
by continuing the quarrel. Dunstan was waiting 
for this, and took his ale in shorter draughts than 
usual. 

“It’s just like you,” Godfrey burst out, in a bit¬ 
ter tone, “to talk about my selling Wildfire in that 
cool way—the last thing I’ve got to call my own, 
and the best bit of horse-flesh I ever had in my 
life. And if you’d got a spark of pride in you, you’d 
be ashamed to see the stables emptied, and every¬ 
body sneering about it. But it’s my belief you’d 
sell yourself, if it was only for the pleasure of 
making somebody feel he’d got a bad bargain.” 

“Ay, ay,” said Dunstan, very placably, “you do 
me justice, I see. You know I’m a jewel for ’ticing 
people into bargains. For which reason I advise 
you to let me sell Wildfire. I’d ride him to the 
hunt to-morrow for you, with pleasure. I 


40 


Silas Marker 


shouldn’t look so handsome as you in the saddle, 
but it’s the horse they’ll bid for, and not the 
rider.” 

“Yes, I daresay—trust my horse to you!” 

“As you please,” said Dustan, rapping the win¬ 
dow-seat again with an air of great unconcern. 
“It’s you have got to pay Fowler’s money; it’s 
none of my business. You received the money 
from him when you went to Brancote, and you 
told the Squire it wasn’t paid. I’d nothing to do 
with that; you chose to be so obliging as to give 
it to me, that is all. If you don’t want to pay the 
money, let it alone; it’s all one to me. But I was 
willing to accommodate you by undertaking to sell 
the horse, seeing it’s not convenient to you to go 
so far to-morrow.” 

Godfrey was silent for some moments. He 
would have liked to spring on Dunstan, wrench 
the whip from his hand, and flog him to within 
an inch of his life; and no bodily fear could have 
deterred him; but he was mastered by another 
sort of fear, which was fed by feelings stronger 
even than his resentment. When he spoke again 
it was in a half-conciliatory tone. 

“Well, you mean no nonsense about the horse, 
eh? You’ll sell him all fair, and hand over the 
money? If you don’t, you know, everything ’ull 
go to smash, for I’ve got nothing else to trust to. 
And you’ll have less pleasure in pulling the house 
over my head, when your own skull’s to be brok¬ 
en too.” 

“Ay, ay,” said Dunstan, rising; “all right. I 
thought you’d come round. I’m the fellow to bring 



Silas Marker 


41 


old Bryce up to the scratch. I’ll get you a hundred 
and twenty for him, if I get you a penny.” 

‘‘But it’ll perhaps rain cats and dogs to-morrow, 
as it did yesterday, and then you can’t go,” said 
Godfrey, hardly knowing whether he wished for 
that obstacle or not. 

“Not it/' said Dunstan. “I’m always lucky in 
my weather. It might rain if you wanted to go 
yourself. You never hold trumps, you know—I 
always do. You’ve got the beauty, you see, and 
I’ve got the luck, so you must keep me by you for 
your crooked sixpence; you’ll ?ie-ver get along 
without me.” 

“Confound you, hold your tongue,” said God¬ 
frey, impetuously. “And take oare to keep sober 
to-morrow, else you’ll get pitched on your head 
coming home, and Wildfire might be the worse 
for it.” 

“Make your tender heart easy,” said Dunstan, 
opening the door. “You never knew me to see 
double when I’d got a bargain to make; it ’ud 
spoil the fun. Besides, whenever I fall. I’m war¬ 
ranted to fall on my legs.” 

With that Dunstan slammed the door behind 
him, and left Godfrey to that bitter rumination 
on his personal circumstances which was now un¬ 
broken from day to day save by the excitement of 
sporting, drinking, card-playing, or the rarer and 
less oblivious pleasure of seeing Miss Nancy Lam- 
meter. The subtle and varied pains springing 
from the higher sensibility that accompanies high¬ 
er culture, are perhaps less pitiable than that 
dreary absence of impersonal enjoyment and con- 


42 


Silas Marker 


solation which leaves ruder minds to the perpet¬ 
ual urgent companionship of their own griefs and 
discontents. The lives of those rural forefathers, 
whom we are apt to think very prosaic figures— 
men whose only work was to ride round their 
land, getting heavier and heavier in their saddles, 
and who passed the rest of their days in the half¬ 
listless gratification of senses dulled by monotony 
—had a certain pathos in them nevertheless. 
Calamities came to them too, and their early er¬ 
rors carried hard consequences: perhaps the love 
of some sweet maiden, the image of purity, order, 
and calm, had opened their eyes to the vision of a 
life in which the days would not seem too long, 
even without rioting; but the maiden was lost, 
and the vision passed away, and then what was 
left to them, especially when they had become too 
heavy for the hunt, or for carrying a gun over 
the furrows, but to drink and get merry, or to 
drink and get angry, so that they might be inde¬ 
pendent of variety, and say over again with eager 
emphasis the things they had said already any 
time that twelvemonth? Assuredly, among these 
flushed and dull-eyed men there were some whom 
—thanks to their native human kindness—even 
riot could never drive into brutality; men who, 
when their cheeks were fresh, had felt the keen 
point of sorrow or remorse, had been pierced by 
the reeds they leaned on, or had lightly put their 
limbs in fetters from which no struggle could loose 
them; and under these sad circumstances, com¬ 
mon to us all, their thoughts could find no resting- 


Silas Marner 


43 


place outside the ever trodden round of their own 
petty history. 

That, at least, was the condition of Godfrey 
Cass in the six-and-twentieth year of his life. A 
movement of compunction, helped by those small 
indefinable influences which every personal rela¬ 
tion exerts on a pliant nature, had urged him into 
a secret marriage, which was a blight on his life. 
It was an ugly story of low passion, delusion, and 
waking from delusion, which needs not to be drag¬ 
ged from the privacy of Godfrey’s bitter memory. 
He had long known that the delusion was partly 
due to a trap laid for him by Dunstan, who Siaw 
in his brother’s degrading marriage the means of 
gratifying at once his jealous hate and his cupidi¬ 
ty. And if Godfrey could have felt himself sim¬ 
ply a victim, the iron bit that destiny had put into 
his mouth would have chafed him less intolerably. 
If the curses he muttered half aloud when he was 
alone had had no other object than Dunstan’s dia¬ 
bolical cunning, he might have shrunk less from 
the consequences of avowal. But he had something 
else to curse—his own vicious folly, which now 
seemed as mad and unaccountable to him as al¬ 
most all our follies and vices do when their 
promptings have long passed away. For four 
years he had thought of Nancy Lammeter, and 
wooed her with tacit patient worship, as the wo¬ 
man who made him think of the future with joy: 
she would be his wife, and would make home love¬ 
ly to him, as his father’s home had never been; 
and it would be easy, when she was always near, 
to shake off those foolish habits that were no 


44 


Silas Marker 


pleasures, but only a feverish way of annulling 
vacancy. Godfrey’s was an essentially domestic 
nature, bred up in a home where the hearth had 
no smiles, and where the daily habits were not 
chastised by the presence of household order; his 
easy disposition made him fall in unresistingly 
with the family courses, but the need of some ten¬ 
der permanent affection, the longing for some in¬ 
fluence that would make the good he preferred 
easy to pursue, caused the neatness, purity, and 
liberal orderliness of the Lammeter household, 
sunned by the smile of Nancy, to seem like those 
fresh bright hours of the morning when tempta¬ 
tions go to sleep, and leave the ear open to the 
voice of the good angel, inviting to industry, so¬ 
briety, and peace. And yet the hope of this para¬ 
dise had not been enough to save him from a 
course which shut him out of it for ever. Instead 
of keeping fast hold of the strong silken rope by 
which Nancy would have drawn him safe to the 
green banks where it was easy to step firmly, he 
had let himself be dragged back into mud and 
slime, in which it was useless to struggle. He had 
made ties for himself which robbed him of all 
Wholesome motive, and were a constant exasper¬ 
ation. 

Still, there was one position worse than the 
present: it was the position he would be in when 
the ugly secret was disclosed; and the desire that 
continually triumphed over every other was that 
of warding off the evil day, when he would have 
to bear the consequences of his father’s violent 
resentment for the wound inflicted on his family 


Silas Marner 


45 


pride—would have, perhaps, to turn his back on 
that hereditary ease and dignity which, after all, 
was a sort of reason for living, and would carry 
with him the certainty that he was banished for 
.ever from the sight and esteem of Nancy Lamme- 
ter. The longer the interval, the more chance there 
was of deliverance from some, at least, of the 
hateful consequences to which he had sold him¬ 
self,—^the more opportunities remained for him 
to snatch the strange gratification of seeing 
Nancy, and gathering some faint indications of 
her lingering regard. Towards this gratification 
he was impelled,.fitfully, every now and then, aft¬ 
er having passed weeks in which he had avoided 
her as the far-off bright-winged prize that only 
made him spring forward and find his chain all 
the more galling. One of those fits of yearning 
was on him now, and it would have been strong 
enough to have persuaded him to trust Wildfire to 
Dunstan rather than disappoint the yearning, 
even if he had not had another reason for his dis¬ 
inclination towards the morrow's hunt. That oth¬ 
er reason was the fact that the morning’s meet 
was near Batherley, the market-town where the 
unhappy woman lived, whose image became more 
odious to him every day; and to his thought the 
whole vicinage' was haunted by her. The yoke a 
man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed 
hate in the kindliest nature; and the good-hu¬ 
moured, affectionate-hearted Godfrey Cass was 
fast becoming a bitter man, visited by cruel 


‘Vicinity; neighborhood. 



46 


Silas Marner 


wishes, that seemed to enter, and depart, and en¬ 
ter again, like demons who had found in him a 
ready-garnished home. 

What was he to do this evening to pass the 
time? He might as well go to the Rainbow, and 
hear the talk about the cock-fighting: everybody 
was there, and what else was there to be done? 
Though, for his own part, he did not care a but¬ 
ton for cock-fighting. Snuff, the brown spaniel, 
who had placed herself in front of him, and had 
been watching him for some time, now jumped 
up in impatience for the expected caress. But 
Godfrey thrust her away without looking at her, 
and left the room, followed humbly by the unre¬ 
senting Snuff—perhaps because she saw no other 
career open to her. 


CHAPTER IV 

Dunstan Cass, setting off in the raw morning, 
at the judiciously quiet pace of a man who is 
obliged to ride to cover on his hunter, had to take 
his way along the lane which, at its farther ex¬ 
tremity, passed by the piece of unenclosed ground 
called the Stonepit, where stood the cottage, once 
a stone-cutter’s shed, now for fifteen years in¬ 
habited by Silas Marner. The spot looked very 
dreary at this season, with the moist trodden clay 
about it, and the red, muddy water high up in the 
deserted quarry. That was Dunstan’s first thought 
as he approached it; the second was, that the old 
fool of a weaver, whose loom he heard rattling al¬ 
ready, had a great deal of money hidden some¬ 
where. How was it that he, Dunstan Cass, who 
had often heard talk of Marner’s miserliness, had 
never thought of suggesting to Godfrey that he 
should frighten or persuade the old fellow into 
lending the money on the excellent security of the 
young Squire’s prospects? The resource occur¬ 
red to him now as so easy and agreeable, especial¬ 
ly as Marner’s hoard was likely to be large enough 
to leave Godfrey a handsome surplus beyond his 
immediate needs, and enable him to accommodate 
his faithful brother, that he had almost turned 
the horse’s head towards home again. Godfrey 
would be ready enough to accept the suggestion: 
he would snatch eagerly at a plan that might save 
him from parting with Wildfire. But when Dun- 
stan’s meditation reached this point, the inclina¬ 
tion to go on grew strong and prevailed. He 
[ 47 ] 


48 


Silas Marner 


didn’t want to give Godfrey that pleasure: he pre¬ 
ferred that Master Godfrey should be vexed. 
Moreover, Dunstan enjoyed the self-important 
consciousness of having a horse to sell, and the 
opportunity of driving a bargain, swaggering, 
and, possibly taking somebody in. He might have 
all the satisfaction attendant on selling his broth¬ 
er’s horse, and not the less have the further satis¬ 
faction of setting Godfrey to borrow Marner’s 
money. So he rode on to cover. 

Bryce and Keating were there, as Dunstan was 
quite sure they would be—he was such a lucky 
fellow. 

“Hey-day!” said Bryce, who had long had his 
eye on Wildfire, “you’re on your brother’s horse 
to-day: how’s that?” 

“Oh, I’ve swopped with him,” said Dunstan, 
whose delight in lying, grandly independent of 
utility, was not to be diminished by the likelihood 
that his hearer would not believe him—“Wild¬ 
fire’s mine now.” 

“What! has he swopped with you for that big¬ 
boned hack of yours?” said Bryce, quite aware 
that he should get another lie in answer. 

“Oh, there was a little account between us,” 
said Dunsey, carelessly, “and Wildfire made it 
even. I accommodated him by taking the horse, 
though it was against my will, for I’d got an itch 
for a mare o’ Jortin’s—as rare a bit o’ blood as 
ever you threw your leg across. But I shall keep 
Wildfire, now I’ve got him, though I’d a bid of a 
hundred and fifty for him the other day, from a 
man over at Flitton —ha’s buying for Lord Grom- 


Silas Marner 


49 


leek—a fellow with a cast in his eye, and a green 
waistcoat. But I mean to stick to Wildfire: I 
shan’t get a better at a fence in a hurry. The 
mare’s got more blood, but she’s a bit too weak 
in the hind-quarters.” 

Bryce of course divined that Dunstan wanted 
to sell the horse, and Dunstan knew that he di¬ 
vined it (horse-dealing is only one of many hu¬ 
man transactions carried on in this ingenious 
manner) ; and they both considered that the bar¬ 
gain was in its first stage, when Bryce replied, 
ironically— 

'T wonder at that now; I wonder you mean to 
keep him; for I never heard of a man who didn’t 
want to sell his horse getting a bid of half as 
much again as the horse is worth. You’ll be lucky 
if you get a hundred.” 

Keating rode up now, and the transaction be¬ 
came more complicated. It ended in the purchase 
of the horse by Bryce for a hundred and twenty, 
to be paid on the delivery of Wildfire, safe and 
sound, at the Batherley stables. It did occur to 
Dunsey that it might be wise for him to give up 
the day’s hunting, proceed at once to Batherley, 
and, having waited for Bryce’s return, hire a 
horse to carry him home with the money in his 
pocket. But the inclination for a run, encouraged 
by confidence in his luck, and by a draught of 
brandy from his pocket-pistol at the conclusion of 
the bargain, was not easy to overcome, especially 
with a horse under him that would take the fences 
to the admiration of the field. Dunstan, however, 
took one fence too many, and “staked’’ his horse. 


50 


Silas Marker 


His own ill-favoured person, which was quite un¬ 
marketable, escaped without injury, but poor 
Wildfire, unconscious of his price, turned on his 
flank, and painfully panted his last. It happened 
that Dunstan, a short time before, having had 
to get down to arrange his stirrup, had muttered 
a good many curses at this interruption, which 
had thrown him in the rear of the hunt near the 
moment of glory, and under this exasperation had 
taken the fences more blindly. He would soon 
have been up with the hounds again, when the fa¬ 
tal accident happened; and hence he was between 
eager riders in advance, not troubling themselves 
about what happened behind them, and far-off 
stragglers, who were as likely as not to pass quite 
aloof from the line of road in which Wildfire had 
fallen. Dunstan, whose nature it was to care 
more for immediate annoyances than for remote 
consequences, no sooner recovered his legs, and 
saw that it was all over with Wildfire, than he felt 
a satisfaction at the absence of witnesses to a po¬ 
sition which no swaggering could make enviable. 
Reinforcing himself, after his shake, with a little 
brandy and much swearing, he walked as fast as 
he could to a coppice' on his right hand, through 
which it occurred to him that he could make his 
way to Batherley without danger of encountering 
any member of the hunt. His first intention wias 
to hire a horse there and ride home forthwith, for 
to walk many miles without a gun in his hand and 
along an ordinary road, was as much out of the 


^Growing thicket. 



Silas Marker 


51 


question to him as to other spirited young men of 
his kind. He did not much mind about taking the 
bad news to Godfrey, for he had to offer him at 
the same time the resource of Marner’s money; 
and if Godfrey kicked, as he always did, at the 
notion of making a fresh debt from which he 
himself got the smallest share of advantage, why, 
he wouldn’t kick long: Dunstan felt sure he could 
worry Godfrey into anything. The idea of Mar- 
ner’s money kept growing in vividness, now the 
want of it had become immediate; the prospect of 
having to make his appearance with the muddy 
boots of a pedestrian at Batherley and to encoun¬ 
ter the grinning queries of stablemen, stood un¬ 
pleasantly in the way of his impatience to be back 
at Raveloe and carry out his felicitous plan; and 
a casual visitation of his waistcoat-pocket, as he 
was ruminating, awakened his memory to the fact 
that the two or three small coins his fore-finger 
encountered there, were of too pale a colour to 
cover that small debt, without payment of which 
Jennings had declared he would never do any 
more business with Dunsey Cass. After all, ac¬ 
cording to the direction in which the run had 
brought him, he was not so very much farther 
from home than he was from Batherley; but Dun¬ 
sey, not being remarkable for clearness of head, 
was only led to this conclusion by the gradual per¬ 
ception that there were other reasons for choos¬ 
ing the unprecedented course of walking home. It 
was now nearly four o’clock, and a mist was gath¬ 
ering: the sooner he got into the road the better. 
He remembered having crossed the road and seen 


52 


Silas Marker 


the finger-post only a little while before Wildfire 
broke down; so, buttoning his coat, twisting the 
lash of his hunting-whip compactly round the 
handle, and rapping the tops of his boots with a 
self-possessed air, as if to assure himself that he 
was not at all taken by surprise, he set off with the 
sense that he was undertaking a remarkable feat 
of bodily exertion, which somehow and at some 
time he should be able to dress up and magnify 
to the (admiration of a select circle at the Rain¬ 
bow. When a young gentleman like Dunsey is re¬ 
duced to so exceptional a mode of locomotion as 
walking, a whip in his hand is a desirable cor¬ 
rective to a too bewildering dreamy sense of un¬ 
wontedness in his position; and Dunstan, as he 
went along through the gathering mist, was al¬ 
ways rapping his whip somewhere. It was God¬ 
frey’s whip, which he had chosen to take without 
leave because it had a gold handle; of course no 
one could see, when Dunstan held it, that the 
name Godfrey Cass was cut in deep letters on 
that gold handle—^they could only see that it was 
a very handsome whip.' Dunsey was not without 
fear that he might meet some acquaintance in 
whose eyes he would cut a pitiable figure, for mist 
is no screen when people get close to each other; 
but when he at last found himself in the well- 
known Raveloe lanes without having met a soul, 
he silently remarked that that was part of his us¬ 
ual good-luck. But now the mist, helped by the 
evening darkness, was more of a screen than he 


^Au important detail in the plot, as will appear later. 



Silas Marker 


53 


desired, for it hid the ruts into which his feet 
were liable to slip—hid everything, so that he had 
to guide his steps by dragging his whip along the 
low bushes in advance of the hedgerow. He must 
soon, he thought, be getting near the opening at 
the Stonepits: he should find it out by the break 
in the hedgerow. He found it out, however, by an¬ 
other circumstance which he had not expected— 
namely, by certain gleams of light, which he pres¬ 
ently guessed to proceed from Silas Marner’s cot¬ 
tage. That cottage and the money hidden within 
it had been in his mind continually during his 
walk, and he had been imagining ways of cajol¬ 
ing and tempting the weaver to part with the im¬ 
mediate possession of his money for the sake of 
receiving interest. Dunstan felt as if there must 
be a little frightening added to the cajolery, for 
his own arithmetical convictions were not clear 
enough to afford him any forcible demonstration 
as to the advantages of interest; and as for se¬ 
curity, he regarded it vaguely as a means of cheat¬ 
ing a man by making him believe that he would 
be paid. Altogether, the operation on the miser’s 
mind was a task that Godfrey would be sure to 
hand over to his more daring and cunning broth¬ 
er: Dunstan had made up his mind to that; and 
by the time he saw the light gleaming through 
the chinks of Marner’s shutters, the idea of a 
dialogue with the weaver had become so familiar 
to him, that it occurred to him as quite a natural 
thing to make the acquaintance forthwith. There 
might be several conveniences attending this 
course: the weaver had possibly got a lanterzii 


54 


Silas Marner 


and Dunstan was tired of feeling his wav. He 
was still nearly three-quarters of a mile from 
home, and the lane was becoming unpleasantly 
slippery, for the mist was passing into rain. He 
turned up the bank, not without some fear lest 
he might miss the right way, since he was not 
certain whether the light were in front or on the 
side of the cottage. But he felt the ground before 
him cautiously with his whip-handle, and at last 
arrived safely at the door. He knocked loudly, 
rather enjoying the idea that the old fellow would 
be frightened at the sudden noise. He heard no 
movement in reply: all was silence in the cottage. 
Was the weaver gone to bed, then? If so, why 
had he left a light? That was a strange forget¬ 
fulness in the miser. Dunstan knocked still more 
loudly, and, without pausing for a reply, pushed 
his fingers through the latch-hole, intending to 
shake the door and pull the latch-string up and 
down, not doubting that the door was fastened. 
But, to his surprise, at this double motion the 
door opened, and he found himself in front of a 
bright fire which lit up every corner of the cot¬ 
tage—the bed, the loom, the three chairs, and the 
table—and showed him that Marner was not 
there. 

Nothing at that moment could be much more 
inviting to Dunsey than the bright fire on the 
brick hearth: he walked in and seated himself by 
it at once. There was something in front of the 
fire, too, that would have been inviting to a hungry 
man, if it had been in a different stage of cooking. 
It was a small bit of pork suspended from the 


Silas Marner 


65 


kettle-hanger by a string passed through a large 
door-key, in a way known to primitive house¬ 
keepers unpossessed of jacks. But the pork had 
been hung at the farthest extremity of the hanger, 
apparently to prevent the roasting from proceed¬ 
ing too rapidly during the owner’s absence. The 
old staring simpleton had hot meat for his supper, 
then? thought Dunstan. People had always said 
he lived on mouldy bread, on purpose to check his 
appetite. But where could he be at this time, and 
on such an evening, leaving his supper in this 
stage of preparation, and his door unfastened? 
Dunstan’s own recent difficulty in making his way 
suggested to him that the weaver had perhaps 
gone outside his cottage to fetch in fuel, or for 
some such brief purpose, and had slipped into the 
Stonepit.' That was an interesting idea to Dun¬ 
stan, carrying consequences of entire novelty. If 
the weaver was dead, who had a right to his 
money? Who would know where his money was 
hidden? Who would know that amjhody had come 
to take it away ? He went no farther into the 
subtleties of evidence: the pressing question, 
“Where is the money?” now took such entire pos¬ 
session of him as to make him quite forget that 
the weaver’s death was not a certainty. A dull 
mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters 
a desire, is rarely able to retain the impression 
that the notion from which the inference started 
was purely problematic. And Dunstan’s mind 
was as dull as the mind of a possible felon usually 

^Aii importaut possibility in this story is here provided. 
Who does fall into the Stonepit later? 



56 


Silas Marker 


is. There were only three hiding-places where 
he had ever heard of cottagers' hoards being 
found: the thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor. 
Marner’s cottage had no thatch; and Dunstan's 
first act, after a train of thought made rapid by 
the stimulus of cupidity, was to go up to the bed; 
but while he did so, his eyes travelled eagerly over 
the floor, where the bricks, distinct in the fire¬ 
light, were discernible under the sprinkling of 
sand. But not everywhere; for there was one 
spot, and one only, which was quite covered with 
sand, and sand showing the marks of fingers, 
which had apparently been careful to spread it 
over a given space. It was near the treddles 
of the loom. In an instant Dunstan darted to 
that spot, swept away the sand with his whip, 
and, inserting the thin end of the hook between 
the bricks, found that they were loose. In haste 
he lifted up two bricks, and saw what he had no 
doubt was the object of his search; for what could 
there be but money in those two leathern bags? 
And, from their weight, they must be filled with 
guineas. Dunstan felt round the hole, to be cer¬ 
tain that it held no more; then hastily replaced the 
bricks, and spread the sand over them. Hardly 
more than five minutes had passed since he en¬ 
tered the cottage, but it seemed to Dunstan like 
a long while; and though he was without any dis¬ 
tinct recognition of the possibility that Marner 
might be alive, and might re-enter the cottage at 
any moment, he felt an undefinable dread laying 
hold on him, as he rose to his feet with the bags 
in his hand^ He would hasten out into the dark- 


Silas Marner 


57 


ness, and then consider what he should do with 
the bags. He closed the door behind him imme¬ 
diately, that he might shut in the stream of light: 
a few steps would be enough to carry him beyond 
betrayal by the gleams from the shutter-chinks 
and the latch-hole. The rain and darkness had got 
thicker, and he was glad of it; though it was awk¬ 
ward walking with both hands filled, so that it 
was as much as he could do to grasp his whip 
along with one of the bags. But when he had 
gone a yard or two, he might take his time. So 
he stepped forward into the darkness. 


CHAPTER V 


When Dunstan Cass turned his back on the cot¬ 
tage, Silas Marner was not more than a hundred 
yards away from it, plodding along from the vil¬ 
lage with a sack thrown round his shoulders as 
an over-coat, and with a horn lantern in his hand. 
His legs were weary, but his mind was at ease, 
free from the presentiment of change. The sense 
of security more frequently springs from habit 
than from conviction, and for this reason it often 
subsists after such a change in the conditions as 
might have been expected to suggest alarm. The 
lapse of time during which a given event has not 
happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly 
ajleged as a reason why the event should never 
happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely 
the added condition which makes the event immi¬ 
nent. A man will tell you that he has worked in 
a mine for forty years unhurt by an accident, as 
a reason why he should apprehend no danger, 
though the roof is beginning to sink; and it is 
often observable, that the older a man gets, the 
more difficult it is to him to retain a believing 
conception of his own death. This influence of 
habit w^as necessarily strong in a man whose life 
was so monotonous as Marner’s—who saw no new 
people and heard of no new events to keep alive 
in him the idea of the unexpected and the change¬ 
ful; and it explains simply enough, why his mind 
could be at ease, though he had left his house and 
his treasure more defenceless than usual. Silas 
was thinking with double complacency of his 
[ 58 ] 


Silas Marker 


59 


supper: first, because it would be hot and 
savoury; and secondly, because it would cost 
him nothing. For the little bit of pork 
was a present from that excellent housewife. 
Miss Priscilla Lammeter, do whom he had 
this day carried home a ' handsome piece of 
linen; and it was only on occasion of a present like 
this, that Silas indulged himself with roast-meat. 
Supper was his favourite meal, because it came at 
his time of revelry, when his heart warmed over 
his gold; whenever he had roast-meat, he always 
chose to have it for supper. But this evening, he 
had no sooner ingeniously knotted his string fast 
round his bit of pork, twisted the string according 
to rule over his door-key, passed it through the 
handle, and made it fast on the hanger, than he 
remembered that a piece of very fine twine was 
indispensable to his “setting up” a new piece of 
work in his loom early in the morning. It had 
slipped his memory, because, in coming from Mr. 
Lammeter’s, he had not had to pass through the 
village; but to lose time by going on errands in 
the morning was out of the question. It was a 
nasty fog to turn out into, but there were things 
Silas loved better than his own comfort; so, draw¬ 
ing his pork to the extremity of the hanger, and 
arming himself with his lantern and his old sack, 
he set out on what, in ordinary weather, would 
have been a twenty minutes’ errand. He could 
not have locked his door without undoing his well- 
knotted string and retarding his supper; it was 
not worth his while to make that sacrifice. What 
thief would find his way to the Stonepits on such 


60 


Silas Marker 


a night as this ? and why should he come on this 
particular night, when he had never come through 
all the fifteen years before? These questions 
were not distinctly present in Silas’s mind; they 
merely serve to represent the vaguely-felt foun¬ 
dation of his freedom from anxiety. 

He reached his door in much satisfaction that 
his errand was done: he opened it, and to his 
short-sighted eyes everything remained as he had 
left it, except that the fire sent out a welcome in¬ 
crease of heat. He trod about the floor while put¬ 
ting by his lantern and throwing aside his hat 
and sack, so as to merge the marks of Dunstan’s 
feet on the sand, in the marks of his own nailed 
boots. Then he moved his pork nearer to the fire, 
and sat down to the agreeable business of tending 
the meat and warming himself at the same time. 

Any one who had looked at him as the red light 
shone upon his pale face, strange straining eyes, 
and meagre form, would perhaps have understood 
the mixture of contemptuous pity, dread, and sus¬ 
picion with which he was regarded by his neigh¬ 
bours in Raveloe. Yet few men could be more 
harmless than poor Marner. In his truthful sim¬ 
ple soul, not even the growing greed and worship 
of gold could beget any vice directly injurious 
to others. The light of his faith quite put out, 
and his affections made desolate, he had clung 
with all the force of his nature to his work and his 
money; and like all objects to which a man devotes 
himself, they had fashioned him into correspond¬ 
ence with themselves. His loom, as he wrought in 
it without ceasing, had in its turn wrought on 


Silas Marker 


61 


him, and confirmed more and more the monot¬ 
onous craving for its monotonous response. His 
gold, as he hung over it and saw it grow, gathered 
his power of loving together into a hard isolation 
like its own. 

As soon as he was warm he began to think it 
would be a long while to wait till after supper 
before he drew out his guineas, and it would be 
pleasant to see them on the table before him as 
he ate his unwonted feast. For joy is the best of 
wine, and Silas’s guineas were a golden wine of 
that sort. 

He rose tand placed his candle unsuspectingly 
on the fioor near his loom, swept away the sand 
without noticing any change, and removed the 
bricks. The sight of the empty hole made his 
heart leap violently, but the belief that his gold 
was gone could not come at once—only terror, and 
the eager effort to put an end to the terror. He 
passed his trembling hand all about the hole, try¬ 
ing to think it possible that his eyes had deceived 
him; then he held the candle in the hole and ex¬ 
amined it curiously, trembling more and more. 
At last he shook so violently that he let fall the 
candle, and lifted his hands to his head, trying to 
steady himself, that he might think. Had he put 
his gold somewhere else, by a sudden resolution 
last night, and then forgotten it? A man falling 
into dark water seeks a momentary footing even 
on sliding stones; and Silas, by acting as if he 
believed in false hopes, warded off the mofnent of 
despair. He searched in every corner, he turned 
his bed over, and shook it, and kneaded it; he 


62 


Silas Marker 


looked in his brick oven where he laid his sticks. 
When there was no other place to be searched, he 
kneeled down again and felt once more all round 
the hole. There was no untried refuge left for a 
moment’s shelter from the terrible truth. 

Yes, there was a sort of refuge which always 
comes with the prostration of thought under an 
overpowering passion: it was that expectation of 
impossibilities, that belief in contradictory im¬ 
ages, which is still distinct from madness, because 
it is capable of being dissipated by the external 
fact. Silas got up from his knees trembling, and 
looked round at the table: didn’t the gold lie there 
after all? The table was bare. Then he turned 
and looked behind him—looked all round his 
dwelling, seeming to strain his brown eyes after 
some possible appearance of the bags where he 
had already sought them in vain. He could see 
every object in his cottage—and his gold was not 
there. 

Again he put his trembling hands to his head, 
and gave a wild ringing scream, the cry of deso¬ 
lation. For a few moments after, he stood mo¬ 
tionless; but the cry had relieved him from the 
first maddening pressure of the truth. He turned, 
and tottered towards his loom, and got into the 
seat where he worked, instinctively seeking this 
as the strongest assurance of reality. 

And now that all the false hopes had vanished, 
and the first shock of certainty was past, the idea 
of a thief began to present itself, and he enter¬ 
tained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught 
and made to restore the gold. The thought 


Silas Marner 


63 


brought some new strength with it, and he started 
from his loom to the door. As he opened it the 
rain beat in upon him, for it was falling more 
and more heavily. There were no footsteps to be 
tracked on such a night—footsteps? When had 
the thief come? During Silas’s absence in the 
daytime the door had been locked, and there had 
been no marks of any inroad on his return by day¬ 
light. And in the evening, too, he said to himself, 
everything was the same as when he had left it. 
The sand and bricks looked as if they had not 
been moved. Was it a thief who had taken the 
bags? or was it a cruel power that no hands could 
reach which had delighted in making him a sec¬ 
ond dime desolate? He shrank from this vaguer 
dread, and fixed his mind with struggling effort on 
the robber with hands, who could be reached by 
hands. His thoughts glanced at all the neigh¬ 
bours who had made any remarks, or asked any 
questions which he might now regard as a ground 
of suspicion. There was Jem Rodney, .a known 
poacher, and otherwise disreputable; he had often 
met Marner in his journeys across the fields, and 
had said something jestingly about the weaver’s 
money; nay, he had once irritated Marner, by 
lingering at the fire when he called to light his 
pipe, instead of going about his business. Jem 
Rodney was the man—there was ease in the 
thought. Jem could be found and made to restore 
the money: Marner did not want to punish him, 
but only to get back his gold which had gone from 
him, and left his soul like a forlorn traveller on an 
unknown desert. The robber must be laid hold of. 


64 


Silas Marker 


Marner’s ideas of legal authority were confused, 
but he felt that he must go and proclaim his loss; 
and the great people in the village—the clergy¬ 
man, the constable, and Squire Cass—would make 
Jem Rodney, or somebody else, deliver up the 
stolen money. He rushed out in the rain, under 
the stimulus of this hope, forgetting to cover his 
head, not caring to fasten his door; for he felt 
as if he had nothing left to lose. He ran swiftly, 
till want of breath compelled him to slacken his 
pace as he was entering the village at the turning 
close to the Rainbow. 

The Rainbow, in Marner’s view, was a place of 
luxurious resort for rich and stout husbands, 
whose wives had superfluous stores of linen; it 
was the place where he was likely to And the pow¬ 
ers and dignities of Raveloe, and where he could 
most speedily make his loss public. He lifted the 
latch, and turned into the bright bar or kitchen 
on the right hand, where the less lofty customers 
of the house were in the habit of assembling, the 
parlour on the left being reserved for the more 
select society in which Squire Cass frequently en¬ 
joyed the double pleasure of conviviality and con¬ 
descension. But the parlour was dark to-night, 
the chief personages who ornamented its circle 
being all at Mrs. Osgood’s birthday dance, as God¬ 
frey Cass was. And in consequence of this, the 
party on the high-screened seats in the kitchen 
was more numerous than usual; several person¬ 
ages, who would otherwise have been admitted 
into the parlour and enlarged the opportunity of 
hectoring and condescension for their betters, be- 


Silas Marner 


65 


ing content this evening to vary their enjoyment 
by taking their spirits-and-water where they could 
themselves hector and condescend in company that 
called for beer. 


CHAPTER VI 


The conversation, which was at a high pitch of 
animation when Silas approached the door of the 
Rainbow, had, as usual, been slow and intermit¬ 
tent when the company first assembled. The pipes 
began to be puffed in a silence which had an air of 
severity; the more important customers, who 
drank spirits and sat nearest the fire, staring at 
each other as if a bet were depending on the first 
man who winked; while the beer-drinkers, chiefly 
men in fustian jackets and smock-frocks, kept 
their eyelids down and rubbed their hands across 
their mouths, as if their draughts of beer were 
a funeral duty attended with embarrassing sad¬ 
ness. At last, Mr. Snell, the landlord, a man of a 
neutral disposition, accustomed to stand aloof 
from human differences as those of beings who 
were all alike in need of liquor, broke silence, by 
saying in a doubtful tone to his cousin the 
butcher— 

“Some folks ’ud say that was a fine beast you 
druv in yesterday. Bob?” 

The butcher, a jolly, smiling, red-haired man, 
was not disposed to answer rashly. He gave a few 
puffs before he spat and replied, “And they 
wouldn’t be fur wrong, John.” 

After this feeble delusive thaw, the silence set 
in as severely as before. 

“Was it a red Durham?” said the farrier, tak¬ 
ing up the thread of discourse after the lapse of 
a few minutes. 

The farrier looked at the landlord, and the 
[ 66 ] 


Silas Marner 


67 


landlord looked at the butcher, as the person who 
must take the responsibility of answering. 

“Red it was,” said the butcher, in his good- 
humoured husky treble—“and a Durham it was.” 

“Then you needn’t tell me who you bought it 
of,” said the farrier, looking round with some 
triumph; “I know who it is has got the red Dur- 
hams o’ this countryside. And she’d a white star 
on her brow, I’ll bet a penny?” The farrier leaned 
forward with his hands on his knees as he put this 
question, and his eyes twinkled knowingly. 

“Well; yes—she might,” said the butcher, slow¬ 
ly, considering that he was giving a decided affirm¬ 
ative. “I don’t say contrairy.” 

“I knew that very well,” said the farrier, throw¬ 
ing himself backward again, and speaking defi¬ 
antly; “if 7 don’t know Mr. Lammeter’s cows, 
I should like to know who does—that’s all. And 
as for the cow you’ve bought, bargain or no bar¬ 
gain, I’ve been at the drenching of her—contra- 
dick me who will.” 

The farrier looked fierce, and the mild butch¬ 
er’s conversational spirit was roused a little. 

“I’m not for contradicking no man,” he said; 
“I’m for peace and quietness. Some are for cut¬ 
ting long ribs—I’m for cutting ’em short myself; 
but I don’t quarrel with ’em. All I say is, it’s a 
lovely carkiss—and anybody as was reasonable, it 
’ud bring teafs into their eyes to look at it.” 

“Well, it’s the cow as I drenched, whatever it 
is,” pursued the farrier angrily; “and it was Mr. 
Lammeter’s cow, else you told a lie when you said 
it was a red Durham.” 


68 


Silas Marker 


“I tell no lies/’ said the butcher, with the same 
mild huskiness as before, “and I contradick none 
—not if a man was to swear himself black: he’s 
no meat o’ mine, nor none o’ my bargains. All I 
say is, it’s a lovely carkiss. And what I say I’ll 
stick to; but I’ll quarrel wi’ no man.” 

“No,” said the farrier, with bitter sarcasm, 
looking at the company generally; “and p’rhaps 
you aren’t pig-headed; and p’rhaps you didn’t say 
the cow was a red Durham; and p’rhaps you didn’t 
say she’d got a star on he'r brow—stick to that, 
now you’re at it.” 

“Come, come,” said the Landlord; “let the cow 
alone. The truth lies atween you: you’re both 
right and both wrong, as I allays say. And as for 
the cow’s being Mr. Lammeter’s, I say nothing 
to that; but this I say, as the Rainbow’s the Rain¬ 
bow. And for the matter o’ that, if the talk is to 
be o’ the Lammeters, you know the most upo’ that 
head, eh, Mr. Macey? You remember when first 
Mr. Larqpieter’s father come to these parts, and 
took the Warrens?” 

Mr. Macey, tailor and parish-clerk, the latter 
of which functions rheumatism had of late obliged 
him to share with a small-featured young man 
who sat opposite him, held his white head on one 
side, and twirled his thumbs with an air of com¬ 
placency, slightly seasoned with criticism. He 
smiled pityingly, in answer to the landlord’s ap¬ 
peal, and said— 

“Ay, ay; I know, I know; but I let other folks 
talk. I’ve laid by now, and gev up to the young 
uns. Ask them as have been to school at Tarley: 


Silas Marner 


69 


they’ve learnt pernouncing; that’s come up since 
my day.” 

‘If you’re pointing at me, Mr. Macey,” said the 
deputy-clerk, with an air of anxious propriety, 
“I’m nowise ta man to speak out of my place. As 
the psalm says—' 

‘I know what’s right, nor only so. 

But also practise what I know.’ ” 

“Well, then, I wish you’d keep hold o’ the tune, 
when it’s set for you; if you’re for prac^fsing, I 
wish you’d practise that,” said a large jocose- 
looking man, an excellent wheelwright in his 
week-day capacity, but on Sundays leader of the 
choir. He winked, as he spoke, at two of the 
company, who were known officially as the “bas¬ 
soon”" and the “key-bugle,”' in the confidence that 
he was expressing the sense of the musical pro¬ 
fession in Raveloe. 

Mr. Tookey, the deputy clerk, who shared the 
unpopularity common to deputies, turned very 
red, but replied, with careful moderation—“Mr. 
Winthrop, if you’ll bring me any proof as I’m in 
the wrong. I’m not the man to say I won’t alter. 
But there’s people set up their own ears for a 
standard, and expect the whole choir to follow 
’em. There may be two opinions, I hope.” 

“Ay, ay,” said Mr. Macey, who felt very well 
satisfied with this attack on youthful presump¬ 
tion: “you’re right there, Tookey: there’s allays 
two ’pinions; there’s the ’pinion a man has of 

’A wind instrument of the double reed kind with a com¬ 
pass of three octaves. It has a curved mouthpiece. 

^Bugle with keys; two octaves ill compass. 



70 


Silas Marker 


himsen, and there’s the ’pinion other folks have 
on him. There’d be two ’pinions about a cracked 
bell, if the bell could hear itself.” 

“Well, Mr. Macey,” said poor Tookey, serious 
amidst the general laughter, “I undertook to par¬ 
tially fill up the office of parish-clerk by Mr. Crack- 
enthorp’s desire, whenever your infirmities should 
make you unfitting; and it’s one of the rights 
thereof to sing in the choir—else why have you 
done the same yourself?” 

“Ah! but the old gentleman and you are two 
folks,” said Ben Winthrop. “The old gentleman’s 
got a gift. Why the Squire used to invite him to 
take a glass, only to hear him sing the 'Red Ro- 
vier’; didn’t he, Mr. Macey? It’s a nat’ral gift. 
There’s my little lad Aaron, he’s got a gift— 
he can sing a tune off straight, like a thros¬ 
tle. But as for you. Master Tookey, you’d better 
stick to your ‘Amens’: your voice is well enough 
when you keep it up in your nose. It’s your in¬ 
side as isn’t right made for music: it’s no better 
nor a hollow stalk.” 

This kind of unflinching frankness was the most 
piquant form of joke to the company at the Rain¬ 
bow, and Ben Winthrop’s insult was felt by every¬ 
body to have capped Mr. Macey’s epigram. 

“I see what it is plain enough,” said Mr. Tookey, 
unable to keep cool any longer. “There’s a con- 
speracy to turn me out o’ the choir, as I shouldn’t 
share the Christmas money—that’s where it is. 
But I shall speak to Mr. Crackenthorp; I’ll not be 
put upon by no man.” 

“Nay, nay, Tookey,” said Ben Winthrop. “We’ll 


Silas Marner 


71 


pay you your share to keep out of it—that’s what 
we’ll do. There’s things folks ’ud pay to be rid on, 
besides varmin.” 

“Come, come,” said the landlord, who felt that 
paying people for their absence was a principle 
dangerous to society; “a joke’s a joke. We’re 
all good friends here, I hope. We must give and 
take. You’re both right and you’re both wrong, 
as I say. I agree wi' Mr. Macey here, as there’s 
two opinions; and if mine was asked, I should say 
they’re both right. Tookey’s right and Win- 
throp’s right, and they’ve only to split the dif¬ 
ference and make themselves even.” 

The farrier was puffing his pipe rather fiercely, 
in some contempt at this trivial discussion. He 
had no ear for music himself, and never went to 
church, as being of the medical profession, and 
likely to be in requisition for delicate cows. But 
the butcher, having music in his soul, had lis¬ 
tened with a divided desire for Tookey’s defeat 
and for the preservation of the peace. 

“To be sure,” he said, following up the land¬ 
lord’s conciliatory view, “we’re fond of our old 
clerk; it’s nat’ral, and him used to be such a sing¬ 
er, and got a brother as is known for the first 
fiddler in this countryside. Eh, it’s a pity but 
what Solomon lived in our village, and could give 
us a tune when we liked; eh, Mr. Macey? I’d 
keep him in liver and lights for nothing—that I 
would.” 

“Ay, ay,” said Mr. Macey, in the height of com¬ 
placency ; “our family’s been known for musician- 
ers as far back as anybody can tell. But them 


72 


Silas Marker 


things are dying out, as I tell Solomon every time 
he comes round; there’s no voice like what there 
used to be, and there’s nobody remembers what 
we remember, if it isn’t the old crows.” 

‘‘Ay, you remember when first Mr. Lammeter’s 
father come into these parts, don’t you, Mr. Ma- 
cey?” said the landlord. 

“I should think I did,” said the old man, who 
had now gone through that complimentary process 
necessary to bring him up to the point of narra¬ 
tion; “and a fine old gentleman he was—as fine, 
and finer nor the Mr. Lammeter as now is. He 
came from a bit north’ard, so far as I could ever 
make out. But there’s nobody rightly knows about 
those parts: only it couldn’t be far north’ard, nor 
much different from this country, for he brought 
a fine breed o’ sheep with him, so there must be 
pastures there, and everything reasonable. We 
beared tell as he’d sold his own land to come and 
take the Warrens, and that seemed odd for a man 
as had land of his own, to come and rent <a farm 
in a strange place. But they said it was along of 
his wife’s dying; though there’s reasons in things 
as nobody knows on—that’s pretty much what 
I’ve made out; though some folks are so wise; 
they’ll find you fifty reasons straight off, and all 
the while the real reason’s winking at ’em in the 
corner, and they niver see’t. Howsomever, it was 
soon seen as we’d got a new parishner as know’d 
the rights and customs o’ things, and kep a good 
house, and was well looked on by everybody. And 
the young man—^that’s the Mr. Lammeter as now 
is, for he’d niver a sister—soon begun to court 


Silas Marner 


73 


Miss Osgood, that's the sister o' the Mr. Osgood 
as now is, and a fine handsome lass she was—eh, 
you can't think—^they pretend this young lass is 
like her, but that's the way wi' people as don't 
know what come before 'em. / should know, for 
I helped the old rector, Mr. Drumlow as was, I 
helped him marry 'em." 

Here Mr. Macey paused; he always gave his 
narrative in instalments, expecting to be ques¬ 
tioned according to precedent. 

“Ay, and a partic'lar thing happened, didn't it, 
Mr. Macey, so as you were likely to remember that 
marriage?" said the landlord, in a congratulatory 
tone. 

“I should think there did—a very partic'lar 
thing," said Mr. Macey, nodding sideways. “For 
Mr. Drumlow—poor old gentleman, I was fond 
on him, though he'd got a bit confused in his 
head, what wi' age and wi' taking a drop o' sum- 
mat warm when the service come of a cold morn¬ 
ing. And young Mr. Lammeter he'd have no way 
but he must be married in Janiwary, which, to be 
sure, 's a unreasonable time to be married in, for 
it isnt' like a christening or a burying, as you 
can't help; and so Mr. Drumlow—poor old gentle¬ 
man, I was fond on him—but when he come to put 
the questions, he put 'em by the rule o' contrairy, 
like, and he says, ‘Wilt thou have this man to thy 
wedded wife?' says he, and then he says, ‘Wilt 
thou have this woman to thy wedded husband?' 
says he. But the partic'larest thing of all is, as 
nobody took any notice on it but me, and they 
answered straight off ‘yes,’ like as if it had been 


74 


Silas Marker 


me saying ‘Amen' in the right place, without lis¬ 
tening to what went before.” 

“But you knew what was going on well enough, 
didn’t you, Mr. Macey? You were live enough, 
eh?” said the butcher. 

“Lor bless you!” said Mr. Macey, pausing, and 
smiling in pity at the impotence of his hearer’s 
imagination—“why, I was all of a tremble: it was 
as if I’d been a coat pulled by the two tails, like; 
for I couldn’t stop the parson, I couldn’t take upon 
me to do that; and yet I said to myself, I says, 
‘Suppose they shouldn’t be fast married, ’cause 
the words are contrairy?’ and my head went work¬ 
ing like a mill, for I was allays uncommon for 
turning things over and seeing all round ’em; and 
I says to myself, ‘Is’t the meanin’ or the words as 
makes folks fast i’ wedlock?” For the parson 
meant right, and the bride and bridegroom meant 
right. But then, when I come to think on it, 
meanin’ goes but a little way i’ most things, for 
you may mean to stick things together and your 
glue may be bad, and then where are you? And 
so I says to mysen, ‘It isn’t the meanin’, it’s the 
glue.’ And I was worreted as if I’d got three 
bells to pull at once, when we went into the vestry, 
and they begun to sign their names. But where’s 
the use o’ talking?—you can’t think what goes on 
in a ’cute man’s inside.” 

“But you held in for all that, didn’t you, Mr. 
Macey?” said the landlord. 

“Ay, and there’s few folks know so well as 
Drumlow, and then I out wi’ everything, but res¬ 
pectful, as I allays did. And he made light on it. 


Silas Marker 


75 


and he says, Tooh, pooh, Macey, make yourself 
easy’, he says; ‘it’s neither the meaning nor the 
words—it’s the regesier does it—that’s the glue.’ 
So you see he settled it easy; for parsons and 
doctors know everything by heart, like, so as 
they aren’t worreted wi’ thinking what’s the 
rights and wrongs o’ things, as I’n been many 
and many’s the time. And sure enough the wed¬ 
ding turned out all right, on’y poor Mrs. Lam- 
meter—^that’s Miss Osgood as was—died afore 
the lasses was growed up; but for prosperity 
and everything respectable, there’s no family 
more looked on.” 

Every one of Mr. Macey’s audience had 
heard this story many times, but it was listened 
to as if it had been a favorite tune, and at cer¬ 
tain points the puffing of the pipes was momen¬ 
tarily suspended, that the listeners might give 
their whole minds to the expected words. But 
there was more to come; and Mr. Snell, the land¬ 
lord, duly put the leading question. 

“Why, old Mr. Lammeter had a pretty fortin, 
didn’t they say, when he come into these parts?” 

“Well, yes,” said Mr. Macey; “but I daresay 
it’s as much as this Mr. Lammeter’s done to keep 
it whole. For there was allays a talk as nobody 
could get rich on the Warrens: though he holds 
it cheap, for it’s what they call Charity Land.” 

“Ay, and there’s few folks know so well as 
you how it come to be Charity Land, eh, Mr. 
Macey?” said the butcher. 

“How should they?” said the old clerk, with 
some contempt. “Why, my grandfather made 


76 


Silas Marner 


the groom’s livery for that Mr. Cliff as came 
and built the big stables at the Warrens. Why, 
they’re stables four times as big as Squire 
Cass’s, for he thought o’ nothing but bosses and 
hunting. Cliff didn’t—a Lunnon tailor, some 
folks said, as had gone mad wi’ cheating. For 
he couldn’t ride; lor bless you! they said he’d 
got no more grip o’ the boss than if his legs had 
been cross-sticks: my grandfather beared old 
Squire Cass say so many and many a time. But 
ride he would as if Old Harry had been a-driv- 
ing him; and he’d a son, a lad o’ sixteen; and 
nothing would his father have him do, but he 
must ride and ride—though the lad was frighted, 
they said. And it was a common saying as the 
father wanted to ride the tailor out o’ the lad, 
and make a gentleman on him—not but what 
I’m a tailor myself, but in respect as God made 
me such, I’m proud on it, for ‘Macey, tailor,’ ’s 
been wrote up over our door since afore the 
Queen’s heads went out on the shillings. But 
Cliff, he was ashamed o’ being called a tailor, 
and he was sore vexed as his riding was laughed 
at, and nobody o’ the gentlefolks hereabout could 
abide him. Howsomever, the poor lad got sick¬ 
ly and died, and the father didn’t live long after 
him, for he got queerer nor ever, and they said 
he used to go out i’ the dead o’ the night, wi’ a 
lantern in his hand, to the stables, and set a 
lot of lights burning, for he got as he couldn’t 
sleep; and there he’d stand, cracking his whip 
and looking at his bosses; and they said it was 
a mercy as the stables didn’t get burnt down 


Silas Marner 


77 


wi' the poor dumb creaturs in 'em. But at last 
he died raving, and they found as he'd left all 
his property, Warrens and all, to a Lunnon 
Charity, and that's how the Warrens come to be 
Charity Land; though, as for the stables, Mr. 
Lammeter never uses 'em—they're out o' all 
charicter—lor bless you! if you was to set the 
doors abanging in 'em, it 'ud sound like thund¬ 
er half o’er the parish." 

‘‘Ay, but there’s more going on in the stables 
than what folks see by daylight, eh, Mr. 
Macey?" said the landlord. 

“Ay, ay; go that way of a dark night, that's 
all," said Mr. Macey, winking mysteriously, “and 
then make believe, if you like, as you didn't see 
lights i' the stables, nor hear the stamping o’ 
the bosses, nor the cracking o' the whips, and 
howling, too, if it's tow’rt daybreak. ‘Cliff's 
Holiday’ has been the name of it ever sin' I were 
a boy; that's to say, some said as it was the 
holiday Old Harry gev him from roasting, like. 
That’s what my father told me, and he was a 
reasonable man, though there's folks nowadays 
know what happened afore they were born bet¬ 
ter nor they know their own business." 

“What do you say to that, eh. Dowlas?" said 
the landlord, turning to the farrier, who was 
swelling with impatience for his cue. “There's 
a nut for you to crack." • 

Mr. Dowlas was the negative spirit in the com¬ 
pany, and was proud of his position. 

“Say? I say what a man should say as doesn't 
shut his eyes to look at a finger-post. I say, as 


78 


Silas Marker 


Pm ready to wager any man ten pound, if he'll 
stand out wi' me any dry night in the pasture 
before the Warren stables, as we shall neither 
see lights nor hear noises, if it isn't the blowing 
of our own noses. That's what I say, and I've 
said it many a time; but there's nobody 'ull ven- 
tur a ten-pun' note on their ghos'es as they make 
so sure of." 

'‘Why, Dowlas, that's easy betting, that is," 
said Ben Winthrop. “You might as well bet a 
man as he wouldn't catch the rheumatise if he 
stood up to's neck in the pool of a frosty night. 
It 'ud be fine fun for a man to win his bet as 
he'd catch the rheumatise. Folks as believe in 
Cliff's Holiday aren't a-going to ventur near it 
for a matter o' ten pound." 

“If Master Dowlas wants to know the truth 
on it," said Mr. Macey, with a sarcastic smile, 
tapping his thumbs together, “he's no call to 
lay any bet—let him go and stan' by himself— 
there's nobody 'ull hinder him; and then he can 
let the parish'ners know if they're wrong." 

“Thank you! I’m obliged to you," said the 
farrier, with a snort of scorn. “If folks are 
fools, it’s no business o’ mine. I don't want to 
make out the truth about ghos'es: I know it 
a’ready. But I'm not against a bet—everything 
fair and open. Let any man bet me ten pound 
as I shall see Cliff's •Holiday, and I’ll go and 
stand by myself. I want no company. I’d as 
lief do it as I'd fill this pipe.” 

“Ah, but who’s to watch you. Dowlas, and see 


Silas Marner 


79 


you do it? That’s no fair bet,” said the butch¬ 
er. 

“No fair bet?” replied Mr. Dowlas, angrily. 
“I should like to hear any man stand up and say 
I want to bet unfair. Come now. Master Lundy, 
I should like to hear you say it.” 

“Very like you would,” said the butcher. “But 
it’s no business o’ mine. You’re none o’ my bar¬ 
gains, and I aren’t a-going to try and ’bate your 
price. If anybody ’ll bid for you at your own 
vallying, let him. I’m for peace and quietness, 
I am.” 

“Yes, that’s what every yapping cur is, when 
you hold a stick up at him,” said the farrier. 
“But I’m afraid o’ neither man nor ghost, and 
I’m ready to lay a fair bet. I aren’t a turn-tail 
cur.” 

“Ay, but there’s this in it. Dowlas,” said the 
landlord, speaking in a tone of much candour 
and tolerance. “There’s folks, i’ my opinion, 
they can’t see ghos’es, not if they stood as plain 
as a pike-staif before ’em. And there’s reason 
4’ that. For there’s my wife, now, can’t smell, 
not if she’d the strongest o’ cheese under her 
nose. I never see’d a ghost myself; but then I 
says to myself, ‘Very like I haven’t got the smell 
for ’em.’ I mean, putting a ghost for a smell, 
or else contrairiways. And so. I’m for holding 
with both sides; for, as I say, the truth lies be¬ 
tween ’em. And if Dowlas was to go and stand, 
and say he’d never seen a wink o’ Cliff’s Holiday 
all the night through, I’d back him; and if any¬ 
body said as Cliff’s Holiday was certain sure for 


80 


Silas Marker 


all that, I’d back him too. For the smell’s what 
I go by.” 

The landlord’s analogical argument was not 
well received by the farrier—a man intensely 
opposed to compromise. 

“Tut, tut,” he said, setting down his glass with 
refreshed irritation; “what’s the smell got to do 
with it? Did ever a ghost give a man a black 
eye? That’s what I should like to know. If 
ghos’es want me to believe in ’em, let ’em leave 
off skulking i’ the dark and i’ lone places—^let 
’em come where there’s company and candles.” 

“As if ghos’es ’ud want to be believed in by 
anybody so ignirant!” said Mr. Macey, in deep 
disgust at the farrier’s crass incompetence to 
apprehend the conditions of ghostly phenomena. 


CHAPTER VII 


Yet the next moment there seemed to be some 
evidence that ghosts had a more condescending 
disposition than Mr. Macey attributed to them; 
for the pale thin figure of Silas Marner was* 
suddenly seen standing in the warm light, utter¬ 
ing no word, but looking round at the company 
with his strange unearthly eyes. The long pipes 
gave a simultaneous movement, like the antennse 
of startled insects, and every man present, 
not excepting even the sceptical farrier, had an 
impression that he saw, not Silas Marner in the 
flesh, but an apparition; for the door by which 
Silas had entered was hidden by the high-screen¬ 
ed seats, and no one had noticed his approach. 
Mr. Macey, sitting a long way off the ghost, 
might be supposed to have felt an argumentative 
triumph, which would tend to neutralize his 
share of the general alarm. Had he not always 
said that when Silas Marner was in that strange 
trance of his, his soul went loose from his body? 
Here was the demonstration: nevertheless, on 
the whole, he would have been as well contented 
without it. For a few moments there was a 
dead silence, Marner’s want of breath and agita¬ 
tion not allowing him to speak. The landlord, 
under the habitual sense that he was bound to 
keep his house open to all company, and confi¬ 
dent in the protection of his unbroken neutrali¬ 
ty, at last took on himself the task of adjuring 
the ghost. 

‘‘Master Marner,he said, in a conciliatory 
[ 81 ] 


82 


Silas Marker 


tone, “what’s lacking to you? What’s your busi¬ 
ness here?” 

“Robbed!” said Silas, gaspingly. “I’ve been 
robbed! I want the constable—and the Justice— 
•and Squire Cass—and Mr. Crackenthorp.” 

“Lay hold on him, Jem Rodney,” said the 
landlord, the idea of a ghost subsiding; “he’s off 
his head, I doubt. He’s wet through.” 

Jem Rodney was the outermost man, and sat 
conveniently near Marner’s standing-place; but 
he declined to give his services. 

“Come and lay hold on him yourself, Mr. 
Snell, if you’ve a mind,” said Jem, rather sullen¬ 
ly. “He’s been robbed, and murdered too, for 
what I know,” he added, in a muttering tone. 

“Jem Rodney!” said Silas, turning and fixing 
his strange eyes on the suspected man. 

“Ay, Master Marner, what do ye want wi’ 
me?” said Jem, trembling a little, and seizing 
his drinking-can as a defensive weapon. 

“If it was you stole my money,” said Silas, 
clasping his hands entreatingly, and raising his 
voice to a cry, “give it me back—and I won’t 
meddle with you. I won’t set the constable on 
you. Give it me back,’ and I’ll let you—I’ll let 
you have a guinea.” 

“Me stole your money!” said Jem, angrily. 
“I’ll pitch this can at your eye if you talk o’ my 
stealing your money.” 

“Come, come, Master Marner,” said the land¬ 
lord, now rising resolutely, and seizing Marner 
by the shoulder, “if you’ve got any information 
to lay, speak it out sensible, and show as you're 


Silas Marker 


83 


in your right mind, if you expect anybody to 
listen to you. You’re as wet as a drownded rat. 
Sit down and dry yourself, and speak straight 
forrard.” 

''Ah, to be sure, man,” said the farrier, who 
began to feel that he had not been quite on a 
par with himself and the occasion. "Let’s have 
no more staring and screaming, else we’ll have 
you strapped for a madman. That was why I 
didn’t speak at the first—thinks I the man’s run 
mad.” 

"Ay, ay, make him sit down,” said several 
voices at once, well pleased that the reality of 
ghosts remained still an open question. 

The landlord forced Marner to take off his 
coat, and then to sit down on a chair aloof from 
every one else, in the centre of the circle and in 
the direct rays of the fire. The weaver, too 
feeble to have any distinct purpose beyond that 
of getting help to recover his money, submitted 
unresistingly. The transient fears of the com¬ 
pany were now forgotten in their strong curios¬ 
ity, and all faces were turned towards Silas, 
when the landlord, having seated himself again, 
said— 

"Now then, Master Marner, what’s this you’ve 
got to say—as you’ve been robbed? Speak out.” 

"He’d better not say again as it was me rob¬ 
bed him,” cried Jem Rodney, hastily. "What 
could I ha’ done with his money? I could as 
easy steal the parson’s surplice, and wear it.” 

"Hold your tongue, Jem, and let’s hear what 


84 


Silas Marner 


he’s got to say,” said the landlord. '‘Now then, 
Master Marner.” 

Silas now told his story, under frequent ques¬ 
tioning as the mysterious character of the rob¬ 
bery became evident. 

This strangely novel situation of opening his 
trouble to his Raveloe neighbours, of sitting in 
the warmth of a hearth not his own, and feeling 
the presence of faces and voices which were his 
nearest promise of help, had doubtless its influ¬ 
ence on Marner, in spite of his passionate pre¬ 
occupation with his loss. Our consciousness 
rarely registers the beginning of a growth with¬ 
in us any more than without us: there have been 
many circulations of the sap before we detect 
the smallest sign of the bud. 

The slight suspicion with which his hearers 
at first listened to him, gradually melted away 
before the convincing simplicity of his distress: 
it was impossible for the neighbours; to doubt that 
Marner was telling the truth, not because they 
were capable of arguing at once from the nature 
of his statements to the absence of any motive 
for making them falsely, but because, as Mr. 
Macey observed, ''Folks as had the devil to back 
’em were not likely to be so mushed” as poor 
Silas was. Rather, from the strange fact that 
the robber had left no traces, and had happened 
to know the nick of time, utterly incalculable 
by mortal agents, when Silas would go away 
from home without locking his door, the more 
probable conclusion seemed to be, that his dis¬ 
reputable intimacy in that quarter, if it ever 


Silas Marker 


85 


existed, had been broken up, and that, in con¬ 
sequence, this ill turn had been done to Marner 
by somebody it was quite in vain to set the con¬ 
stable after. Why this preternatural felon 
should be obliged to wait till the door was left 
unlocked, was a question which did not present 
itself. 

‘‘It isn’t Jem Rodney as has done this work. 
Master Marner,” said the landlord. “You 
mustn’t be a a-casting your eye at poor Jem. 
There may be a bit of a reckoning against Jem 
for the matter of a hare or so if anybody was 
bound to keep their eyes staring open, and niver 
to wink—^but Jem’s been a-sitting here drinking 
his can, like the decentest man i’ the parish, 
since before you left your house. Master Marner, 
by your own account.” 

“Ay, ay,” said Mr. Macey; “let’s have no ac¬ 
cusing o’ the innicent. That isn’t the law. 
There must be folks to swear again’ a man 
before he can be ta’en up. Let’s have no accus¬ 
ing o’ the innicent. Master Marner.” 

Memory was not so utterly torpid in Silas 
that it could not be wakened by these words. 
With a movement of compunction as new and 
strange to him as everything else within the 
last hour, he started from his chair, and went 
close up to Jem, looking at him as if he wanted 
to assure himself of the expression in his face. 

“I was wrong,” he said—“yes, yes—I ought to 
have thought. There’s nothing to witness 
against you, Jem. Only you’d been into my 
house oftener than anybody else, and so you 


86 


Silas Marker 


came into my head. I don’t accuse you—I 
won’t accuse anybody—only,” he added, lifting 
up his hands to his head, and turning away with 
bewildered misery, “I try—I try to think where 
my money" can be.” 

“Ay, ay, they’re gone where it’s hot enough 
to melt ’em, I doubt,” said Mr. Macey. 

“Tchuh!” said the farrier. And then he 
asked, with a cross-examining air, “How much 
money might there be in the bags. Master Mar- 
ner?” 

“Two hundred and seventy-two pounds, twelve 
and sixpence, last night when I counted it,” 
said Silas, seating himself again, with a groan. 

“Pooh! why, they’d be none so heavy to carry. 
Some tramp’s been in, that’s all; and as for 
the no footmarks, and the bricks and the sand 
being all right—why, your eyes are pretty much 
like a insect’s. Master Marner; they’re obliged 
to look so close, you can’t see much at a time. 
It’s my opinion as, if I’d been you, or you’d 
been me—for it comes to the same thing— 
you wouldn’t have thought you’d found every¬ 
thing as you left it. But what I vote is, as 
two of the sensiblest o’ the company should go 
with you to Master Kench, the constable’s— 
he’s ill i’ bed, I know that much—and get him 
to appoint one of us his deppity; for that’s 
the law, and I don’t think anybody ’ull take 
upon him to contradick me there. It isn’t much 
of a walk to Kench’s; and then, if it’s me as 
is deppity. I’ll go back with you, Master Mar- 


^Chiineas in later editions, 



Silas Marner 


87 


ner, and examine your premises; and if any¬ 
body’s got any fault to find with that, I’ll thank 
him to stand up and say it out like a man.” 

By this pregnant speech the farrier had re¬ 
established his self-complacency, and waited with 
confidence to hear himself named as one of the 
superlatively sensible men. 

“Let us see how the night is, though,” said 
the landlord, who also considered himself per¬ 
sonally concerned in this proposition. “Why, 
it rains heavy still,” he said, returning from the 
door. 

“Well, I’m not the man to be afraid o’ the 
rain,” said the farrier. “For it’ll look bad 
when Justice Malam hears as respectable men 
like us had a information laid before ’em and 
took no steps.” 

The landlord agreed with this view, and after 
taking the sense of the company, and duly re¬ 
hearsing a small ceremony known in high ec¬ 
clesiastical life as the nolo episcopari,"^ he con¬ 
sented to take on himself the chill dignity of go¬ 
ing to Kench’s. But to the farrier’s strong dis¬ 
gust, Mr. Macey now started an objection to his 
proposing himself as a deputy-constable; for 
that oracular old gentleman, claiming to know 


U do not wish to be made a bishop; — ^a phrase signifying 
a person's refusal of an invitation to accept the office of 
bishop. The landlord i)retends that he does not wish to go. 



88 


Silas Marker 


the law, stated, as a fact delivered to him by 
his father, that no doctor could be a constable. 

“And you're a doctor, I reckon, though you’re 
only a cow-doctor, for a fly’s a fly, though it 
may be a boss fly,” concluded Mr. Macey, won¬ 
dering a little at his own “ ’cuteness.” 

There was a hot debate upon this, the farrier 
being of course indisposed to renounce the 
quality of doctor, but contending that a doctor 
could be a constable if he liked—the law meant, 
he needn’t be one if he didn’t like. Mr. Macey 
thought this was nonsense, since the law was 
not likely to be fonder of doctors than of other 
folks. Moreover, if it was in the nature of 
doctors more than of other men not to like being 
constables, how came Mr. Dowlas to be so eager 
to act in that capacity? 

“/ don’t want to act the constable,” said the 
farrier, driven into a corner by this merciless 
reasoning; “and there’s no man can say it of 
me, if he’d tell the truth. But if there’s to be 
any jealousy and envying about going to Kench’s 
in the rain, let them go as like it—you won’t 
get me to go, I can tell you.” 

By the landlord’s intervention, however, the 
dispute was accommodated. Mr. Dowlas con¬ 
sented to go as a second person, disinclined to 
act officially; and so poor Silas, furnished with 
some old coverings, turned out with his two 
companions into the rain again, thinking of 
the long night hours before him, not as those 
do who long to rest, but as those who expect to 
“watch for the morning.” 


CHAPTER VIII 

When Godfrey Oass returned from Mrs. 
Osgood’s party at midnight, he was not much 
surprised to learn that Dunsey had not come 
home. Perhaps he had not sold Wildfire, and 
was waiting for another chance—perhaps, on 
that foggy afternoon, he had preferred housing 
himself at the Red Lion at Batherley for the 
night, if the run had kept him in that neighbour¬ 
hood; for he was not likely to feel much con¬ 
cern about leaving his brother in suspense. 
Godfrey’s mind was too full of Nancy Lam- 
meter’s looks and behaviour, too full of the ex¬ 
asperation against himself and his lot, which 
the sight of her always produced in him, for 
him to give much thought to Wildfire, or to 
the probabilities of Dunstan’s conduct. 

The next morning the whole village was excit¬ 
ed by the story of the robbery, and Godfrey, 
like every one else, was occupied in gathering 
and discussing news about it, and in visiting 
the Stonepits. The rain had washed away all 
possibility of distinguishing footmarks, but a 
close investigation of the spot had disclosed, 
in the direction opposite to the village, a tinder- 
box, with a flint and steel, half sunk in the mud. 
It was not Silas’s tinder-box, for the only one 
he had ever had was still standing on his shelf; 
and the inference generally accepted was, that 
the tinder-box in the ditch was somehow con¬ 
nected with the robbery. A small minority 
shook their heads, and intimated their opinion 

[ 89 ] 


90 


Silas Marner 


that it was not a robbery to have much light 
thrown on it by tinder-boxes, that Master 
Marner’s tale had a queer look with it, and that 
such things had been known as a man’s doing 
himself a mischief, and then setting the justice 
to look for the doer. But when questioned close¬ 
ly as to their grounds for this opinion, and 
what Master Marner had to gain by such false 
pretences, they only shook their heads as be¬ 
fore, and observed that there was no knowing 
what some folks counted gain; moreover, that 
everybody had a right to their own opinions, 
grounds or no grounds, and that the weaver, 
as everybody knew, was partly crazy. Mr. 
Macey, though he joined in the defence of Man¬ 
ner against all suspicions of deceit, also pooh- 
poohed the tinder-box; indeed, repudiated it 
as a rather impious suggestion, tending to im¬ 
ply that everything must be done by human 
hands, and that there was no power which could 
make away with the guineas without moving 
the bricks. Nevertheless, he turned round rath¬ 
er sharply on Mr. Tookey, when the zealous dep¬ 
uty, feeling that this was a view of the case 
peculiarly suited to a parish-clerk, carried it 
still further, and doubted whether it was right to 
inquire into a robbery at all when the circum¬ 
stances were so mysterious. 

‘'As if,” concluded Mr. Tookey—“as if there 
was nothing but what could be made out by 
justices and constables.” 

“Now, don’t you be for overshooting the mark, 
Tookey,” said Mr. Macey, nodding his head 


Silas Marker 


91 


aside, admonishingly. ' ‘‘That’s what you’re 
allays at; if I throw a stone and hit, you think 
there’s summat better than hitting, and you try 
to throw a stone beyond. What I said was 
against the tinder-box: I said nothing against 
justices and constables, for they’re o’ King 
George’s making, and it ’ud be ill-becoming a 
man in a parish office to fly out again’ King 
George.” 

While these discussions were going on amongst 
the group outside the Rainbow, a higher con¬ 
sultation was being carried on within, under the 
presidency of Mr. Crackenthorp, the rector, as¬ 
sisted by Squire Cass and other substantial par¬ 
ishioners. It had just occurred to Mr. Snell, 
the landlord—he being, as he observed, a man 
accustomed to put two and two together—to 
connect with the tinder-box, which, as deputy- 
constable, he himself had had the honorable 
distinction of finding, certain recollections of 
a pedlar who had called to drink at the house 
about a month before, and had actually stated 
that he carried a tinder-box about with him to 
light his pipe. Here, surely, was a clue to be 
followed out. And as memory, when duly im¬ 
pregnated with ascertained facts, is sometimes 
surprisingly fertile, Mr. Snell gradually recover¬ 
ed a vivid impression of the effect produced on 
him by the pedlar’s countenance and conversa¬ 
tion. He had a “look with his eye” which fell un¬ 
pleasantly on Mr. Snell’s sensitive organism. 
To be sure, he didn’t say anything particular— 
no, except that about the tinder-box—but it 


92 


Silas Marner 


isn’t what a man says, it’s the way he says it. 
Moreover, he had a swarthy foreignness of com¬ 
plexion which boded little honesty. 

‘‘Did he wear ear-rings?” Mr. Crackenthorp 
wished to know, having some acquaintance with 
foreign customs. 

“Well—stay—let me see,” said Mr. Snell, like 
a docile clairvoyante, who would really not make 
a mistake if she could help it. After stretch¬ 
ing the corners of his mouth and contracting 
his eyes, as if he were trying to see the ear¬ 
rings, he appeared to give up the effort, and 
said, “Well, he’d got ear-rings in his box to sell, 
so it’s nat’ral to suppose he might wear ’em. 
But he called at every house, a’most, in the vil¬ 
lage; there’s somebody else, mayhap, saw ^em 
in his ears, though I can’t take upon me rightly 
to say.” 

Mr. Snell was correct in his surmise, that 
somebody else would remember the pedlar’s ear¬ 
rings. For on the spread of inquiry among 
the villagers it was stated, with gathering em¬ 
phasis, that the parson had wanted to know 
whether the pedlar wore ear-rings in his ears, 
and an impression was created that a great deal 
depended on the eliciting of this fact. Of 
course, every one who heard the question, not 
having any distinct image of the pedlar as mth- 
out ear-rings, immediately had an image of him 
with ear-rings, larger or smaller, as the case 
might be; and the image was presently taken 
for a vivid recollection, so that the glazier’s 
wife, a well-intentioned woman, not given to 


Silas Marner 


93 


lying, and whose house was among the cleanest 
in the village, was ready to declare, as sure as 
ever she meant to take the sacrament the very 
next Christmas that was ever coming, that 
she had seen big ear-rings, in the shape of the 
young moon, in the pedlar's two ears; while 
Jinny Oates, the cobbler's daughter, being 
a more imaginative person, stated not only that 
she had seen them too, but that they had made 
her blood creep, as it did at that very mom¬ 
ent while there she stood. 

Also, by way of throwing further light on 
this clue of the tinder-box, a collection was made 
of all the articles purchased from the pedlar 
at various houses, and carried to the Rainbow to 
be exhibited there. In fact, there was a gen¬ 
eral feeling in the village, that for the clear¬ 
ing-up of this robbery there must be a great 
deal done at the Rainbow, and that no man 
need offer his wife an excuse for going there 
while it was the scene of severe public duties. 

Some disappointment was felt, and perhaps 
a little indignation also, when it became known 
that Silas Marner, on being questioned by the 
Squire and the parson, had retained no other 
recollection of the pedlar than that he called 
at his door, but had not entered his house, hav¬ 
ing turned away at once when Silas, holding the 
door ajar, had said that he wanted nothing. 
This had been Silas's testimony, though he 
clutched strongly at the idea of the pedlar's be¬ 
ing the culprit, if only because it gave him a 
definite image of a whereabout for his gold 


94 


Silas Marker 


after it had been taken away from its hiding 
place: he could see it now in the pedlar’s box. 
But it was observed with some irritation in the 
village, that anybody but a “blind creatur” like 
Marner would have seen the man prowling 
about, for how came he to leave his tinder-box 
in the ditch close by, if he hadn’t been lingering 
there? Doubtless, he had made his observations 
when he saw Marner at the door. Anybody 
might know—and only look at him—that the 
weaver was a half-crazy miser. It was a won¬ 
der the pedlar hadn’t murdered him; men of 
that sort, with rings in their ears, had been 
known for murderers often and often; there 
had been one tried at the ’sizes, not so long ago 
but what there were people living who remem¬ 
bered it. 

Godfrey Cass, indeed, entering the Rainbow 
during one of Mr. Snell’s frequently repeated 
recitals of his testimony, had treated it lightly, 
stating that he himself had bought a pen-knife 
of the pedlar, and thought him a merry grinning 
fellow enough; it was all nonsense, he said, 
about the man’s evil looks. But this was spoken 
of in the village as the random talk of youth, 
“as if it was only Mr. Snell who had seen some¬ 
thing odd about the pedlar!” On the contrary, 
there were at least half-a-dozen who were ready 
to go before Justice Malam, and give in much 
more striking testimony than any the landlord 
could furnish. It was to be hoped Mr. God¬ 
frey would not go to Tarley and throw cold 
water on what Mr. Snell said there, and so pre- 


Silas Marner 


95 


vent the justice from drawing up a warrant. 
He was suspected of intending this, when, after 
mid-day, he was seen setting off on horseback in 
the direction of Tarley. 

But by this time Godfrey’s interest in the rob¬ 
bery had faded before his growing anxiety 
about Dunstan and Wildfire, and he was going, 
not to Tarley, but to Batherley, unable to rest 
in uncertainty about them any longer. The 
possibility that Dunstan had played him the 
ugly trick of riding away with Wildfire, to re¬ 
turn at the end of a month, when he had gam¬ 
bled away or otherwise squandered the price 
of the horse, was a fear that urged itself upon 
him more, even, than the thought of an accident¬ 
al injury; and now that the dance at Mrs. Os¬ 
good’s was past, he was irritated with himself 
that he had trusted his horse to Dunstan. In¬ 
stead of trying to still his fears he encouraged 
them, with that superstitious impression which 
clings to us all, that if we expect evil very 
strongly it is the less likely to come; and when 
he heard a horse approaching at a trot, and 
saw a hat rising above a hedge beyond an angle 
of the lane, he felt as if his conjuration had suc¬ 
ceeded. But no sooner did the horse come with¬ 
in sight, than his heart sank again. It was 
not Wildfire; and in a few moments more he dis¬ 
cerned that the rider was not Dunstan, but 
Bryce, who pulled up to speak, with a face that 
implied something disagreeable. 

“Well, Mr. Godfrey, that’s a lucky brother of 
yours, that Master Dunsey, isn’t he?” 


96 


Silas Marker 


"‘What do you mean?’’ said Godfrey, hastily. 

“Why, hasn’t he been home yet?” said Bryce. 

“Home? no. What has happened? Be quick. 
What has he done with my horse?” 

“Ah, I thought it was yours, though he pre¬ 
tended you had parted with it to him.” 

“Has he thrown him down and broken his 
knees?” said Godfrey, flushed with exasperation. 

“Worse than that,” said Bryce. “You see, 
I’d made a bargain with him to buy the horse 
for a hundred and twenty—a swinging price, 
but I always liked the horse. And what does 
he do but go and stake him—fly at a hedge 
with stakes in it, atop of a bank with a ditch 
before it. The horse had been dead a pretty 
good while when he was found. So he hasn’t 
been home since, has he?” 

“Home? no,” said Godfrey, “and he’d better 
keep away. Confound me for a fool! I might 
have known this would be the end of it.” 

“Well, to tell you the truth,” said Bryce, “after 
I’d bargained for the horse, it did come into 
my head that he might be riding and selling 
the horse without your knowledge, for I didn’t 
believe it was his own. I knew Master Dunsey 
was up to his tricks sometimes. But where can 
he be gone? He’s never been seen at Batherley. 
He couldn’t have been hurt, for he must have 
walked off.” 

“Hurt?” said Godfrey, bitterly. “He’ll never 
be hurt—he’s made to hurt other people.” - 

“And so you did give him leave to sell the 
horse, eh?” said Bryce. 


Silas Marner 


97 


“Yes; I wanted to part with the horse—he 
was always a little too hard in the mouth for 
me/’ said Godfrey; his pride making him wince 
under the idea that Bryce guessed the sale to be 
a matter of necessity. ‘1 was going to see 
after him—I thought some mischief had hap¬ 
pened. ril go back now/’ he added, turning 
the horse’s head, and wishing he could get 
rid of Bryce; for he felt that the long-dreaded 
crisis of his life was close upon him. “You’re 
coming on to Raveloe, aren’t you?” 

“Well, no, not now,” said Bryce. “I was 
coming round there, for I had to go to Flitton, 
and I thought I might as well take you in my 
way, and just let you know all I knew myself 
about the horse. I suppose Master Dunsey didn’t 
like to show himself till the ill news had blown 
over a bit. He’s perhaps gone to pay a visit at 
the Three Crowns, by Whitbridge—I know he’s 
fond of the house.” 

“Perhaps he is,” said Godfrey, rather absent¬ 
ly. Then rousing himself, he said, with an ef¬ 
fort at carelessness, “We shall hear of him soon 
enough, I’ll be bound.” 

“Well, here’s my turning,” said Bryce, not 
surprised to perceive that Godfrey was rather 
“down”; “so I’ll bid you good-day, and wish I 
may bring you better news another time.” 

Godfrey rode along slowly, representing to 
himself the scene of confession to his father 
from which he felt that there was now no long¬ 
er any escape. The revelation about the money 
must be made the very next morning; and if 


98 


Silas Marker 


he withheld the rest, Dunstan would be sure to 
come back shortly, and, finding that he must 
bear the brunt of his father’s anger, would tell 
the whole story out of spite, even though he 
had nothing to gain by it. There was one step, 
perhaps, by which he might still win Dunstan’s 
silence and put off the evil day: he might tell 
his father he had himself spent the money paid 
to him by Flower; and as he had never been 
guilty of such an offence before, the affair 
would blow over after a little storming. But 
Godfrey could not bend himself to this. He felt 
that in letting Dunstan have the money, he had 
already been guilty of a breach of trust hard¬ 
ly less culpable than that of spending the money 
directly for his own behoof; and yet there was 
a distinction between the two acts which made 
him feel that the one was so much more black¬ 
ening than the other as to be intolerable to him. 

'T don’t pretend to be a good fellow,” he said 
to himself; “but I’m not a scoundrel—^at least. 
I’ll stop short somewhere. I’ll bear the conse¬ 
quences of what I have done sooner than make 
believe I’ve done what I never would have done. 
I’d never have spent the money for my own 
pleasure—I was tortured into it.” 

Through the remainder of this day Godfrey, 
with only occasional fluctuations, kept his will 
bent in the direction of a complete avowal to 
his father, and he withheld the story of Wild¬ 
fire’s loss till the next morning, that it might 
serve him as an introduction to heavier matter. 
The old Squire was accustomed to his son’s 


Silas Marker 


99 


frequent absence from home, and thought neith¬ 
er Dunstan’s nor Wildfire’s non-appearance a 
matter calling for remark. Godfrey said to him¬ 
self again and again, that if he let slip this one 
opportunity of confession, he might never have 
another; the revelation might be made even 
in a more odious way than by Dunstan’s malig¬ 
nity : she might come as she had threatened 
to do. And then he tried to make the scene 
easier to himself by rehearsal: he made up 
his mind how he would pass from the admission 
of his weakness in letting Dunstan have the 
money to the fact that Dunstan had a hold on 
him which he had been unable to shake off, 
and how he would work up his father to ex¬ 
pect something very bad before he told him 
the fact. The old Squire was an implacable 
man: he made resolutions in violent anger, and 
he was not to be moved from them after his 
anger had subsided—as fiery volcanic matters 
^ool and harden into rock. Like many violent 
and implacable men, he allowed evils to grow 
under favour of his own heedlessness, till they 
pressed upon him with exasperating force, and 
then he turned round with fierce severity and 
became unrelentingly hard. This was his sys¬ 
tem with his tenants: he allowed them to get in¬ 
to arrears, neglect their fences, reduce their 
stock, sell their straw, and otherwise go the 
wrong way,—and then, when he became short 
of money in consequence of this indulgence, he 
took the hardest measures and would listen to 
no appeal. Godfrey knew all this, and felt it 


100 


Silas Marner 


with the greater force because he had constant¬ 
ly suffered annoyance from witnessing his fath¬ 
er's sudden fits of unrelentingness, for which 
his own habitual irresolution deprived him of 
all sympathy. (He was not critical on the faulty 
indulgence which preceded these fits; that seem¬ 
ed to him natural enough). Still there was just 
the chance, Godfrey thought, that his father's 
pride might see this marriage in a light that 
would induce him to hush it up, rather than 
turn his son out and make the family the talk 
of the country for ten miles round. 

This was the view of the case that Godfrey 
managed to keep before him pretty closely till 
midnight, and he went to sleep thinking that 
he had done with inward debating. But when 
he awoke in the still morning darkness he found 
it impossible to reawaken his evening thoughts; 
it was as if they had been tired out and were 
not to be roused to further work. Instead of 
arguments for confession, he could now feeW 
the presence of nothing but its evil conse¬ 
quences: the old dread of disgrace came back— 
the old shrinking from the thought of raising 
a hopeless barrier between himself and Nancy 
—^the old disposition to rely on chances which 
might be favourable to him, and save him from 
betrayal. Why, after all, should be cut off the 
hope of them by his own act? He had seen 
the matter in a wrong light yesterday. He 
had been in a rage with Dunstan, and had 
thought of nothing but a thorough break-up 
of their mutual understanding; but what it 


Silas Marner 


101 


would be really wisest for him to do, was to try 
and soften his father’s anger against Dunsey, 
and keep things as nearly as possible in their old 
condition. If Dunsey did not come back for a 
few days (and Godfrey did not know but that 
the rascal had enough money in his pocket to 
enable him to keep away still longer), every¬ 
thing might blow over. 



CHAPTER IX 


Godfrey rose and took his own breakfast 
earlier than usual, but lingered in the wain¬ 
scoted parlour till his younger brothers had fin¬ 
ished their meal and gone out, awaiting his 
father, who always took a walk with his man¬ 
aging-man before breakfast. Every one break¬ 
fasted at a different hour in the Red House, and 
the Squire was always the latest, giving a long 
chance to a rather feeble morning appetite be¬ 
fore he tried it. The table had been spread with 
substantial eatables nearly two hours before 
he presented himself—a tall, stout man of sixty, 
with a face in which the knit brow and rather 
hard glance seemed contradicted by the slack 
and feeble mouth. His person showed marks 
of habitual neglect, his dress was slovenly; and 
yet there was something in the presence of the 
old Squire distinguishable from that of the 
ordinary farmers in the parish, who were per¬ 
haps every whit as refined as he, but, having- 
slouched their way through life with a con¬ 
sciousness of being in the vicinity of their “bet¬ 
ters,” wanted that self-possession and authorita¬ 
tiveness of voice and carriage which belonged to 
a man who thought of superiors as remote ex¬ 
istences with whom he had personally little more 
to do than with America or the stars. The 
Squire had been used to parish homage all his 
life, used to the presupposition that his family, 
his tankards, and everything that was his, were 
the oldest and best; and as he never associated 

[102] 


Silas Marker 


103 


with any gentry higher than himself, his opin¬ 
ion was not disturbed by comparison. 

He glanced at his son as he entered the room, 
and said, ‘‘What, sir! haven’t you had your 
breakfast yet?” but there was no pleasant morn¬ 
ing greeting between them; not because of any 
unfriendliness, but because the sweet flower 
of courtesy is not a growth of such homes as 
the Red House. 

“Yes, sir,” said Godfrey, “I’ve had my break¬ 
fast, but I was waiting to speak to you.” 

“Ah! well,” said the Squire, throwing himself 
indifferently into his chair, and speaking in a 
ponderous coughing fashion, which was felt in 
Raveloe to be a sort of privilege of his rank, 
while he cut a piece of beef, and held it up be¬ 
fore the deer-hound that had come in with him. 
“Ring the bell for my ale, will you? You young¬ 
sters’ business is your own pleasure, mostly. 
There’s no hurry about it for anybody but your¬ 
selves.” 

The Squire’s life was quite as idle as his sons’, 
but it was a fiction kept up by himself and his 
contemporaries in Raveloe that youth was ex¬ 
clusively the period of folly, and that their aged 
wisdom was constantly in a state of endurance 
mitigated by sarcasm. Godfrey waited, before 
he spoke again, until the ale had been brought 
and the door closed—an interval during which 
Fleet, the deer-hound, had consumed enough bits 
Df beef to make a poor man’s holiday dinner. 

“There’s been a cursed piece of ill-luck with 




104 


Silas Marker 


Wildfire/' he began; '‘happened the day before 
yesterday.” 

“What! broke his knees?” said the Squire, af¬ 
ter taking a draught of ale. “I thought you 
knew how to ride better than that, sir. I never 
threw a horse down in my life. If I had, I 
might ha’ whistled for another, for my father 
wasn’t quite so ready to unstring as some other 
fathers I know of. But they must turn over a 
new leaf —they must. What with mortgages 
and arrears. I’m as short o’ cash as a roadside 
pauper. And that fool Kimble says the news¬ 
paper ’s talking about peace. Why, the country 
wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Prices ’ud run 
down like a jack, and I should never get my 
arrears, not if I sold all the fellows up. And 
there’s that damned Fowler, I won’t put up with 
him any longer; I’ve told Winthrop to go to Cox 
this very day. The lying scoundrel told me he’d 
be sure to pay me a hundred last month. He 
takes advantage because he’s on that outlying 
farm, and thinks I shall forget him.” 

The Squire had delivered this speech in a 
coughing and interrupted manner, but with no 
pause long enough for Godfrey to make it a 
pretext for taking up the word again. He felt 
that his father meant to ward off any request 
for money on the ground of the misfortune with 
Wildfire, and that the emphasis he had thus 
been led to lay on his shortness of cash and his 
arrears was likely to produce an attitude of 
mind the utmost unfavorable for his own dis¬ 
closure. But he must go on, now he had begun. 


Silas Marner 


105 


“It’s worse than breaking the horse’s knees— 
he’s been staked and killed,” he said, as soon as 
his father was silent, and had begun to cut *his 
meat. “But I wasn’t thinking of asking you to 
buy me another horse; I was only thinking I’d 
lost the means of paying you with the price of 
Wildfire, as I’d meant to do. Dunsey took him 
to the hunt to sell him for me the other day, 
and after he’d made a bargain for a hundred 
and twenty with Bryce, he went after the 
hounds, and took some fool’s leap or other that 
did for the horse at once. If it hadn’t been for 
that, I should have paid you a hundred pounds 
this morning.” 

The Squire had laid down his knife and fork, 
and was staring at his son in amazement, not 
being sufficiently quick of brain to form a proba¬ 
ble guess as to what could have caused so 
strange an inversion of the paternal and filial 
relations as this proposition of his son to pay 
him a hundred pounds. 

“The truth is, sir—I’m very sorry—I was 
quite to blame,” said Godfrey. “Fowler did pay 
that hundred pounds. He paid it to me, when I 
was over there one day last month. And 
Dunsey bothered me for the money, and I let 
him have it, because I hoped I should be able 
to pay it you before this.” 

The Squire was purple with anger before his 
son had done speaking, and found utterance 
difficult. “You let Dunsey have it, sir? And 
how long have you been so thick with Dunsey 
that you must collogue with him to embezzle my 



106 


Silas Marner 


money? Are you turning out a scamp? I tell 
you I won’t have it. I’ll turn the whole pack of 
you out of the house together, and marry again. 
I’d have you to remember, sir, my property’s 
got no entail on it;—since my grandfather’s 
time the Casses can do as they like with their 
land. Remember that, sir. Let Dunsey have 
the money! Why should you let Dunsey have 
the money? There’s some lie at the bottom of 
it.” 

'‘There’s no lie, sir,” said Godfrey. “I wouldn’t 
have spent the money myself, but Dunsey both¬ 
ered me, and I was a fool, and let him have it. 
But I meant to pay it, whether he did or not. 
That’s the whole story. I never meant to em¬ 
bezzle money, and I’m not the man to do it. You 
never knew me do a dishonest trick, sir.” 

“Where’s Dunsey, then? What do you stand 
talking there for? Go and fetch Dunsey, as I 
tell you, and let him give account of what he 
wanted the money for, and what he’s done with 
it. He shall repent. I’ll turn him out. I said I 
would, and I’ll do it. He shan’t brave me. Go 
and fetch him.” 

“Dunsey isn’t come back, sir.” 

“What! did he break his own neck, then?” 
said the Squire, with some disgust at the idea 
that, in that case, he could not fulfill his threat. 

“No, he wasn’t hurt, I believe, for the horse 
was found dead, and Dunsey must have walked 
off. I daresay we shall see him again by-and-by. 
I don’t know where he is.” 

“And what must you be letting him have my 


Silas Marker 


107 


money for? Answer me that,” said the Squire, 
attacking Godfrey again, since Dunsey was not 
within reach. 

“Well, sir, I don't know,” said Godfrey, hesi¬ 
tatingly. That was a feeble evasion, but God¬ 
frey was not fond of lying, and, not being suffi¬ 
ciently aware that no sort of duplicity can long 
flourish without the help of vocal falsehoods, he 
was quite unprepared with invented motives. 

“You don’t know? I tell you what it is, sir. 
You’ve been up to some trick, and you’ve been 
bribing him not to tell.” said the Squire, with 
a sudden acuteness which startled Godfrey, who 
felt his heart beat violently at the nearness of 
his father’s guess. The sudden alarm pushed 
him on to take the next step—a very slight im¬ 
pulse suffices for that on a downward road. 

“Why, sir,” he said, trying to speak with care¬ 
less ease, “it was a little affair between me and 
Dunsey; it’s no matter to anybody else. It’s 
hardly worth while to pry into young men’s 
fooleries: it wouldn’t have made any difference 
to you, sir, if if I’d not had the bad luck to lose 
Wildfire. I should have paid you the money.” 

“Fooleries! Pshaw! it’s time you’d done with 
fooleries. And I’d have you know, sir, you must 
ha’ done with ’em,” said the Squire, frowning 
and casting an angry glance at his son. “Your 
goings-on are not what I shall find money for 
any longer. There’s my grandfather had his 
stables full o’ horses, and kept a good house, too, 
and in worse times, by what I can make out; 
and so might I, if I hadn’t four good-for-noth- 


108 


Silas Marner 


ing fellows to hang on me like horse-leeches. 
I’ve been too good a father to you all—that’s 
what it is. But I shall pull up, sir.” 

Godfrey was silent. He was not likely to be 
very penetrating in his judgments, but he had 
always had a sense that his father’s indulgence 
had not been kindness, and had had a vague 
longing for some discipline that would have 
checked his own errant weakness and helped his 
better will. The Squire ate his bread and meat 
hastily,. took a deep draught of ale, then turned 
his chair from the table, and began to speak 
again. 

‘Tt’ll be all the worse for you, you know— 
you’d need try and help me keep things to¬ 
gether.” 

“Well, sir, I’ve often offered to take the man¬ 
agement of things, but you know you’ve taken 
it ill always, and seemed to think I wanted to 
push you out of your place.” 

“I know nothing o’ your offering or o’ my tak¬ 
ing it ill,” said the Squire, whose memory con¬ 
sisted in certain strong impressions unmodified 
by detail; “But I know, one while you seemed to 
be thinking o’ marrying, and I didn’t offer to put 
any obstacles in your way, as some fathers 
would. I’d as lieve you married Lammeter’s 
daughter as anybody. I suppose, if I’d said 
you nay, you’d ha’ kept on with it; but, for 
want o’ contradiction, you’ve changed your mind. 
You’re a shilly-shally fellow: you take after 
your poor mother. She never had a will of her 
own; a woman has no call for one, if she’s got 


Silas Marker 


109 


a proper man for her husband. But your wife 
had need have one, for you hardly know your 
own mind enough to make both your legs walk 
one way. The lass hasn’t said downright she 
won’t have you, has she?” 

“No,” said Godfrey, feeling very hot and un¬ 
comfortable; “but I don’t think she will.” 

“Think! why haven’t you the courage to ask 
her? Do you stick to it, you want to have her 
—that’s the thing?” 

“There’s no other woman I want to marry,” 
said Godfrey, evasively. 

“Well, then, let me make the offer for you, 
that’s all, if you haven’t the pluck to do it your¬ 
self. Lammeter isn’t likely to be loath for his 
daughter to marry into my family, I should 
think. And as for the pretty lass, she wouldn’t 
have her cousin—and there’s nobody else, as I 
see, could ha’ stood in your way.” 

“I’d rather let it be, please sir, at present,” 
said Godfrey in alarm. “I think she’s a little 
offended with me just now, and I should like to 
speak for myself. A man must manage these 
I things for himself.” 

“Well, speak, then, and manage it, and see if 
I you can’t turn over a new leaf. That’s what a 
1 man must do when he thinks o’ marrying.” 

! “I don’t see how I can think of it at present, 

I sir. You wouldn’t like to settle me on one of 
I the farms, I suppose, and I don’t think she’d 
|| come to live in this house with all my brothers. 

I It’s a different sort of life to what she’s been 
I used to.” 

1 


110 


Silas Marner 


“Not come to live in this house? Don’t tell 
me. You ask her, that’s all,” said the Squire, 
with a short, scornful laugh. 

“I’d rather let the thing be, at present, sir,” 
said Godfrey. “I hope you won’t try to hurry 
it on by saying anything.” 

“I shall do what I choose,” said the Squire, 
“and I shall let you know I'm master; else you 
may turn out, and find an estate to drop into 
somewhere else. Go out and tell Winthrop not 
to go to Cox’s, but wait for me. And tell ’em 
to get my horse saddled. And stop: look out 
and get that hack o’ Dunsey’s sold, and hand me 
the money, will you? He’ll keep no more hacks 
at my expense. And if you know where he’s 
sneaking—I daresay you do—you may tell him 
to spare himself the journey o’ coming back 
home. Let him turn ostler, and keep himself. 
He shan’t hang on me any more.” 

“I don’t know where he is; and if I did, it 
isn’t my place to tell him to keep away,” said 
Godfrey, moving towards the door. 

“Confound it, sir, don’t stay arguing, but go 
and order my horse,” said the Squire, taking up 
a pipe. 

Godfrey left the room, hardly knowing wheth¬ 
er he were more relieved by the sense that the 
interview was ended without having made any 
change in his position, or more uneasy that he 
had entangled himself still further in prevarica¬ 
tion and deceit. What had passed about his 
proposing to Nancy had raised a new alarm, 
lest by some after-dinner words of his father’s 


Silas Marner 


111 


to Mr. Lammeter he should be thrown into the 
embarrassment of being obliged absolutely to 
decline her when she seemed to be within his 
reach. He fled to his usual refuge, that of hop¬ 
ing for some unforeseen turn of fortune, some 
favourable chance which would save him from 
unpleasant consequences—perhaps even justify 
his insincerity by manifesting its prudence. And 
in this point of trusting to some throw of for¬ 
tune’s dice, Godfrey can hardly be called old- 
fashioned. Favourable Chance, I fancy, is the 
god of all men who follow their own devices in¬ 
stead of obeying a law they believe in. Let 
even a polished man of these days get into a 
position he is ashamed to avow, and his mind 
will be bent on all the possible issues that may 
deliver him from the calculable results of that 
position. Let him live outside his income, or 
shirk the resolute honest work that brings 
wages, and he will presently find himself dream¬ 
ing of a possible benefactor, a possible simpleton 
who may be cajoled into using his interest, a 
I possible state of mind in some possible person 
j not yet forthcoming. Let him neglect the re- 
I sponsibilities of his office, and he will inevitably 
j anchor himself on the chance, that the thing left 
; undone may turn out not to be of the supposed 
i importance. Let him betray his friend’s confi- 
i dence, and he will adore that same cunning com- 
I plexity called Chance, which gives him the hope 
I that his friend will never know. Let him for- 
' sake a decent craft that he may pursue the gen¬ 
tilities of a profession to which nature never 



112 


Silas Marner 


called him, and his religion will infallibly be the 
worship of blessed Chance, which he will believe 
in as the mighty creator of success. The evil 
principle deprecated in that religion, is the or¬ 
derly sequence by which the seed brings forth 
a crop after its kind. 




CHAPTER X 


Justice Malam was naturally regarded in Tar- 
ley and Raveloe as a man of capacious mind, 
seeing that he could draw much wider conclu¬ 
sions without evidence than could be expected 
of his neighbours who were not on the Commis¬ 
sion of the Peace. Such a man was not likely 
to neglect the clue of the tinder-box, and an 
inquiry was set on foot concerning a pedlar, 
name unknown, with curly black hair and a 
foreign complexion, carrying a box of cutlery 
and jeweller^^ and wearing large rings in his 
ears. But either because inquiry was too slow¬ 
footed to overtake him, or because the descrip¬ 
tion applied to so many pedlars that inquiry did 
not know how to choose among them, weeks 
passed away, and there was no other result con¬ 
cerning the robbery than a gradual cessation of 
the excitement it had caused in Raveloe. Dun- 
stan Cass’s absence was hardly a, subject of re¬ 
mark: he had once before had a quarrel with 
his father, and had gone off, nobody knew whith¬ 
er, to return at the end of six weeks, take up 
his old quarters unforbidden, and swagger as 
usual. His own family, who equally expected 
this issue, with the sole difference that the 
Squire was determined this time to forbid him 
the old quarters, never mentioned his absence; 
and when his uncle Kimble or Mr. Osgood no¬ 
ticed it, the story of his having killed Wildfire, 
and committed some offense against his father 
was enough to prevent surprise. To connect 

[113] 


114 


Silas Marner 


the fact of Dunsey’s disappearance with that of 
the robbery occurring on the same day, lay quite 
away from the track of every one's thought— 
even Godfrey's, who had better reason than any 
one else to know what his brother was capable 
of. He remembered no mention of the weaver 
between them since the time, twelve years ago, 
when it was their boyish sport to deride him; 
and, besides, his imagination constantly created 
an alibi for Dustan: he saw him continually in 
some congenial haunt, to which he had walked 
off on leaving Wildfire—saw him sponging on 
chance acquaintances, and meditating a return 
home to the old amusement of tormenting his 
elder brother. Even if any brain in Kaveloe had 
put the said two facts together, I doubt whether 
a combination so injurious to the prescriptive 
respectability of a family with a mural monu¬ 
ment and venerable tankards, would not have 
been suppressed as of unsound tendency. But 
Christmas puddings, brawn, and abundance of 
spirituous liquors, throwing the mental origin¬ 
ality into the channel of nightmare, are great 
preservatives against a dangerous spontaneity 
of waking thought. 

When the robbery was talked of at the Rain¬ 
bow and elsewhere, in good company, the bal¬ 
ance continued to waver between the rational 
explanation founded on the tinder-box, and the 
theory of an impenetrable mystery that mocked 
investigation. The advocates of the tinder-box- 
and-pedlar view considered the other side a 
muddle-headed and credulous set, who, because 


Silas Marker 


115 


they themselves were wall-eyed, supposed every¬ 
body else to have the same blank outlook; and 
the adherents of the inexplicable, more than 
hinted that their antagonists were animals in¬ 
clined to crow before they had found any corn 
—mere skimming-dishes in point of depth— 
whose clear-sightedness consisted in supposing 
there was nothing behind a barn-door because 
they couldn’t see through it; so that, though 
their controversy did not serve to elicit the fact 
concerning the robbery, it elicited some true 
opinions of collateral importance. 

But while poor Silas’s loss served thus to 
brush the slow current of Raveloe conversation, 
Silas himself was feeling the withering desola¬ 
tion of that bereavement about which his neigh¬ 
bours were arguing at their ease. To any one 
who had observed him before he lost his gold, 
it might have seemed that so withered and 
shrunken a life as his could hardly be suscep¬ 
tible of a bruise, could hardly endure any sub¬ 
traction but such as would put an end to it alto¬ 
gether. But in reality it had been an eager 
life, filled with immediate purpose which fenced 
him in from the wide, cheerless unknown. It 
had been a clinging life; and though the object 
round which its fibres had clung was a dead dis¬ 
rupted thing, it satisfied the need for clinging. 
But now the fence was broken down—^the sup¬ 
port was snatched away. Marner’s thoughts 
could no longer move in their old round, and 
were baffled by a blank like that which meets 
a plodding ant when the earth has broken away 


116 


Silas Marker 


on its homeward path. The loom was there, and 
the weaving, and the growing pattern in the 
cloth; but the bright treasure in the hole under 
his feet was gone; the prospect of handling and 
counting was gone: the evening had no phan¬ 
tasm of delight to still the poor soul’s craving. 
The thought of the money he would get by his 
actual work could bring no joy, for its meagre 
image was only a fresh reminder of his loss; 
and hope was too heavily crushed by the sudden 
blow, for his imagination to dwell on the growth 
of a new hoard from that small beginning. 

He filled up the blank with grief. As he sat 
weaving, he every now and then moaned low, 
like one in pain: it was the sign that his 
thoughts had come round again to the sudden 
chasm—to the empty evening-time. And all the 
evening, as he sat in his loneliness by his dull 
fire, he leaned his elbows on his knees, and 
clasped his head with his hands, and moaned 
very low—not as one who seeks to be heard. 

And yet he was not utterly forsaken in his 
trouble. The repulsion Marner had always 
created in his neighbours was partly dissipated 
by the new light in which this misfortune had 
shown him. Instead of a man who had more 
cunning than honest folks could come by, and, 
what was worse, had not the inclination to use 
that cunning in a neighbourly way, it was now 
apparent that Silas had not cunning enough to 
keep his own. He was generally spoken of as 
a “poor mushed creatur”; and that avoidance 
of his neighbours, which had before been re- 


Silas Marker 


117 


ferred to his ill-will and to a probable addiction 
to worse company, was now considered mere 
craziness. 

This change to a kindlier feeling was shown 
in various ways. The odour of Christmas cook¬ 
ing being on the wind, it was the season when 
superfluous pork and black puddings are sugges¬ 
tive of charity in well-to-do families; and Silas’s 
misfortune had brought him uppermost in the 
memory of housekeepers like Mrs. Osgood. Mr. 
Crackenthorp, too, while he admonished Silas 
that his money had probably been taken from 
him because he thought too much of it and never 
came to church, enforced the doctrine by a 
present of pigs’ pettitoes, well calculated to 
dissipate unfounded prejudices against the cleri¬ 
cal character. Neighbours who had nothing but 
verbal consolation to give showed a disposition 
not only to greet Silas and discuss his misfor¬ 
tune at some length when they encountered him 
in the village, but also to take the trouble of 
calling at his cottage and getting him to repeat 
all the details on the very spot; and then they 
would try to cheer him by saying, “Well, Mas¬ 
ter Marner, you’re no worse off nor other poor 
folks, after all; and if you was to be crippled, 
the parish ’ud give you a ’lowance.” 

I suppose one reason why we are seldom able 
to comfort our neighbours with our words is 
that our goodwill gets adulterated, in spite of 
ourselves, before it can pass our lips. We can 
send black puddings and pettitoes,' without giv- 


"Sausages aud pigsfeet. 



118 


Silas Marker 


ing them a flavour of our own egoism; but lan¬ 
guage is a stream that is almost sure to smack 
of a mingled soil. There was a fair proportion 
of kindness in Raveloe; but it was often of a 
beery and bungling sort, and took the shape 
least allied to the complimentary and hypocriti¬ 
cal. 

Mr. Macey, for example, coming one evening 
expressly to let Silas know that recent events 
had given him the advantage of standing more 
favourably in the opinion of a man whose judg¬ 
ment was not formed lightly, opened the con¬ 
versation by saying, as soon as he had seated 
himself and adjusted his thumbs— 

'‘Come, Master Marner, why, you’ve no call 
to sit amoaning. You’re a deal better off to 
ha’ lost your money, nor to ha’ kep it by foul 
means. I used to think, when you first come in¬ 
to these parts, as you were no better nor you 
should be; you were younger a deal than what 
you are now; but you were allays a staring, 
white-faced creatur, partly like a bald-faced calf, 
as I may say. But there’s no knowing: it isn’t 
every queerlooksed thing as Old Harry's had 
the making of—I mean, speaking o’ toads and 
such; for they’re often harmless, and useful 
against varmin. And it’s pretty much the same 
wi’ you, as fur as I can see. Though as to the 
yarbs and stuff to cure the breathing, if you 
brought that sort o’ knowledge from distant 
parts, you might ha’ been a bit freer of it. And 
if the knowledge wasn’t well come by, why, you 
might ha’ made up for it by coming to church 


Silas Marner 


119 


regular; for as for the children as the [Wise 
Woman charmed, Tve been at the christening of 
^em again and again, and they took the water 
just as well. And that’s reasonable; for if Old 
Harry’s a mind to do a bit o’ kindness for a 
holiday, like, who’s got anything against it? 
That’s my thinking; and I’ve been clerk o’ this 
parish forty year, and I know, when the parson 
and me does the cussing' of a Ash Wednesday, 
there’s no cussing o’ folks as have a mind to be 
cured without a doctor, let Kimble say what he 
will. And so. Master Marner, as I was saying 
—for there’s windings i’ things as they may 
carry you to the fur end o’ the prayer-book 
afore you get back to ’em—my advice is, as 
you keep up your sperrits; for as for thinking 
you’re a deep un, and ha’ got more inside you 
nor ’ull bear daylight, I’m not o’ that opinion at 
all, and so I tell the neighbours. For, says I, 
you talk o’ Master Marner making out a tale— 
Why, it’s nonsense, that is: it ’ud take a cute 
man to make a tale like that; and, says I, he 
looked as scared as a rabbit.” 

During this discursive address Silas had con¬ 
tinued motionless in his previous attitude, lean¬ 
ing his elbows on his knees, and pressing his 
hands against his head. Mr. Macey, not doubt¬ 
ing that he had been listened to, paused, in 
the expectation of some appreciatory reply, but 
Marner remained silent. He had a sense that 
the old man meant to be good-natured and neigh- 

^He is speaking of the solemn curse of the church against 
evil. 



120 


Silas Marner 


bourly; but the kindness fell on him as sun¬ 
shine falls on the wretched—he had no heart to 
taste it, and felt that it was very far off him. 

"‘Come, Master Marner, have you got nothing 
to say to that?” said Mr. Macey at last, with 
a slight accent of impatience. 

''Oh,” said Marner, slowly, shaking his head 
between his hands, "I thank you—thank you— 
kindly.” 

"Ay, ay, to be sure: I thought you would,” 
said Mr. Macey; "and my advice is—have you 
got a Sunday suit?” 

"N'o,” said Marner. 

"I doubted it was so,” said Mr. Macey. "Now, 
let me advise you to get a Sunday suit: there’s 
Tookey, he’s a poor creatur, but he’s got my 
tailoring business, and some o’ my money in it, 
and he shall make a suit at a low price, and 
give you trust, and then you can come to church, 
and be a bit neighbourly. Why, you’ve never 
beared me say 'Amen’ since you come into these 
parts, and I recommend you to lose no time, for 
it’ll be poor work when Tookey has it all to 
himself, for I mayn’t be equil to stand i’ the 
desk at ail, come another winter.” Here Mr. 
Macey paused, perhaps expecting some sign of 
emotion in his hearer; but not observing any, 
he went on. "And as for the money for the 
suit o’ clothes, why, you get a matter of a 
pound a-week at your weaving, Master Marner, 
and you’re a young man, eh, for all you look so 
mushed. Why, you couldn’t ha’ been five-and- 
twenty when you come into these parts, eh?” 


Silas Marner 


121 


Silas started a little at the change to a ques¬ 
tioning tone, and answered mildly, '1 don't 
know; I can’t rightly say—it’s a long while 
since.” 

After receiving such an answer as this, it is 
not surprising that Mr. Macey observed, later 
on in the evening at the Rainbow, that Manner’s 
head was ‘'all of a muddle,” and that it was 
to be doubted if he ever knew when Sunday 
came round, which showed him a worse heathen 
than many a dog. 

Another of Silas’s comforters, besides Mr. 
Macey, came to him with a mind highly charged 
on the same topic. This was Mrs. Winthrop, 
the wheelwright’s wife. The inhabitants of 
Raveloe were not severely regular in their 
church-going, and perhaps there was hardly a 
person in the parish who would not have held 
that to go to church every Sunday in the cal¬ 
endar would have shown a greedy desire to 
stand well with Heaven, and get an undue ad¬ 
vantage over their neighbours—a wish to be 
better than the “common run,” that would have 
implied a reflection on those who had had god¬ 
fathers and grandmothers as well as themselves, 
and had an equal right to the burying-service. 
At the same time, it was understood to be requi¬ 
site for all who were not household servants, 
or young men, to take the sacrament at one of 
the great festivals: Squire Cass himself took it 
on Christmas-day; while those who were held to 
be “good-livers” went to church with greater, 
though still with moderate frequency. 


122 


Silas Marner 


Mrs. Winthrop was one of these: she was in 
all respects a woman of scrupulous conscience, 
so eager for duties, that life seemed to offer 
them too scantily unless she rose at half-past 
four, though this threw a scarcity of work over 
the more advanced hours of the morning, which 
it was a constant problem with her to remove. 
Yet she had not the vixenish temper which is 
sometimes supposed to be a necessary condi¬ 
tion of such habits: she was a very mild, pa¬ 
tient woman, whose nature it was to seek out all 
the sadder and more serious elements of life, 
and pasture her mind upon them. She was the 
person always first thought of in Raveloe when 
there was illness or death in the family, when 
leeches were to be applied, or there was a sud¬ 
den disappointment in a monthly nurse. She was 
a ''comfortable woman”—good-looking, fresh- 
complexioned, having her lips always slightly 
screwed, as if she felt herself in a sick-room 
with a doctor or the clergyman present. But 
she was never whimpering; no one had seen 
her shed tears; she was simply grave and inclined 
to shake her head and sigh, almost impercepti¬ 
bly, like a funeral mourner who is not a relation. 
It seemed surprising that Ben Winthrop, who 
loved his quart-pot and his joke, got along so 
well with Dolly; but she took her husband’s jokes 
and joviality as patiently as everything else, 
considering that "men would be so,” and view¬ 
ing the stronger sex in the light of animals 
whom it had pleased Heaven to make naturally 
troublesome, like bulls and turkey-cocks. 


Silas Marner 


123 


This good wholesome woman could hardly 
fail to have her mind drawn strongly towards 
Silas Marner, now that he appeared in the light 
of a sufferer; and one Sunday afternoon she 
took her little boy Aaron with her, and went 
to call on Silas, carrying in her hand some 
small lard-cakes, flat paste-like articles much 
esteemed in Raveloe. Aaron, an apple-cheeked 
youngster of seven, with a clean starched frill 
which looked like a plate for the apples, needed 
all his adventurous curiosity to embolden him 
against the possibility that the big-eyed weaver 
might do him some bodily injury; and his 
dubiety was much increased when, on arriving 
at the Stonepits, they heard the mysterious 
sound of the loom. 

‘‘Ah, it is as I thought,” said Mrs. Winthrop, 
sadly. 

They had to knock loudly before Silas heard 
them; but when he did come to the door he 
showed no impatience, as he would once have 
done, at a visit that had been unasked for and 
unexpected. Formerly, his heart had been as 
a locked casket with its treasure inside; but 
now the casket was empty, and the lock was 
broken. Left groping in darkness, with his 
prop utterly gone, Silas had inevitably a sense, 
though a dull and half-despairing one, that if 
any help came to him it must come from with¬ 
out; and there was a slight stirring of expecta¬ 
tion at the sight of his fellow-men, a faint con¬ 
sciousness of dependence on their goodwill. He 
opened the door wide to admit Dolly, but with- 


124 


Silas Marner 


out otherwise returning her greeting than by 
moving the arm-chair a few inches as a sign 
that she was to sit down in it. Dolly, as soon 
as she was seated, removed the white cloth that 
covered her lard-cakes, and said in her gravest 
way— 

“I’d a baking yisterday, Master Marner, ’ and 
the lard-cakes turned out better nor common, 
and I’d ha’ asked you to accept some, if you’d 
thought well. I don’t eat such things myself, 
for a bit o’ bread’s what I like from, one year’s 
end to the other; but men’s stomichs are made 
so comical, they want a change—they do, I 
know, God help ’em.” 

Dolly sighed gently as she held out the cakes 
to Silas, who thanked her kindly and looked very 
close at them,* absently, being accustomed to 
look so at everything he took into his hand— 
eyed all the while by the wondering bright orbs 
of the small Aaron, who had made an outwork 
of his mother’s chair, and was peeping round 
from behind it. 

"‘There’s letters pricked on ’em,” said Dolly. 
“I can’t read ’em myself, and there’s nobody, 
not Mr. Macey himself, rightly knows what they 
mean; but they’ve a good meaning for they’re 
the same as is on the pulpit-cloth at church. 
What are they, Aaron, my dear?” 

’Aaron retreated completely behind his out¬ 
work. 

“Oh go, that’s naughty,” said his mother, 
mildly. “Well, whativer the letters are, they’ve 
a good meaning; and it’s a stamp as has been 


Silas Marner 


125 


in our house, Ben says, ever since he was a 
little un, and his mother used to put it on the 
cakes, and I’ve allays put it on too; for if there’s 
any good, we’ve need of it i’ this world.” 

“It’s 1. H. S.”/ said Silas, at which proof of 
learning Aaron peeped round the chair again. 

“Well, to be sure, you can read ’em off,” said 
Dolly. “Ben’s read ’em to me many and many 
a time, but they slip out o’ my mind again; 
the more’s the pity, for they’re good letters, 
else they wouldn’t be in the church; and so I 
prick ’em on all the loaves and all the cakes, 
though sometimes they won’t hold, because o’ 
the rising—for, as I said, if there’s any good 
to be got we’ve need of it i’ this world—that 
we have; and I hope they’ll bring good to you, 
Master Marner, for it’s wi’ that will I brought 
you the cakes; and you see the letters have held 
better nor common.” 

Silas was as unable to interpret the letters as 
Dolly, but there was no possibility of misun¬ 
derstanding the desire to give comfort that made 
itself heard in her quiet tones. He said, with 
more feeling than before—“Thank you—thank 
you kindly.” But he laid down the cake and 
seated himself absently—drearily unconscious 
of any distinct benefit towards which the cake 
and the letters, or even Dolly’s kindness, could 
tend for him. 

“Ah, if there’s good anywhere, we’ve need 
of it,” repeated Dolly, who did not lightly for¬ 
sake a serviceable phrase. She looked at Silas 


^I. H. S. A symbol representing Greek IHS, Jesus, 



126 


Silas Marner 


pityingly as she went on. '‘But you didn’t hear 
the church-bells this morning, Master Marner? 
I doubt you didn’t know it was Sunday. Liv¬ 
ing so lone here, you lose your count, I dare¬ 
say; and then, when your loom makes a noise, 
you can’t hear the bells, more partic’lar now the 
frost kills the sound.” 

"Yes, I did; I heard ’em,” said Silas, to whom 
Sunday bells were a mere accident of the day, 
and not part of its sacredness. There had been 
no bells in Lantern Yard. 

"Dear heart!” said Dolly, pausing before she 
spoke again. "But what a pity it is you should 
work of a Sunday, and not clean yourself—if 
you didn’t go to church; for if you’d a roast¬ 
ing bit, it might be as you couldn’t leave it, 
being a lone man. But there’s the bakehus, if 
you could make up your mind to spend a two¬ 
pence on the oven now and then—not every 
week, in course—I shouldn’t like to do that 
myself,—you might carry your bit o’ dinner 
there, for it’s nothing but right to have a bit 
o’ summat hot of a Sunday, and not to make 
it as you can’t know your dinner from Satur¬ 
day. But now, upo’ Christmas-day, this blessed 
Christmas as is ever coming, if you was to 
take your dinner to the bakehus, and go to 
church, and see the holly and the yew, and 
hear the anthim, and then take the sacramen’, 
you’d be a deal the better, and you’d know which 
end you stood on, and you could put your trust 
i’ Them as knows better nor we do, seein’ you’d 
ha* done what it lies on us all to do.” 


Silas Marner 


127 


Dolly’s exhortation, which was an unusually 
long effort of speech for her, was uttered in the 
soothing persuasive tone with which she would 
have tried to prevail on a sick man to take his 
medicine, or a basin of gruel for which he had 
no appetite. Silas had never before been closely 
urged on the point of his absence from church, 
which had only been thought of as a part of his 
general queerness; and he was too direct and 
simple to evade Dolly’s appeal. 

‘‘Nay, nay,” he said, “I know nothing o’ 
church. I’ve never been to church.” 

“No!” said Dolly, in a low tone of wonder¬ 
ment. Then bethinking herself of Silas’s ad¬ 
vent from an unknown country, she said, “Could 
it ha’ been as they’d no church where you was 
born?” 

“Oh yes,” said Silas, meditatively, sitting in 
his usual posture of leaning on his knees, and 
supporting his head. “There was churches— 
a many—it was a big town. But I knew noth¬ 
ing of ’em—I went to chapel.”" 

Dolly was much puzzled at this new word, but 
she was rather afraid of inquiring further, lest 
“chapel” might mean some haunt of wicked¬ 
ness. After a little thought, she said— 

“Well, Master Marner, it’s niver too late to 
turn over a new leaf, and if you’ve niver had 
no church, there’s no telling the good it’ll do you. 
For I feels so set up and comfortable as niver 
was, when I’ve been and heard the prayers, and 

'Church to Silas meant the English established church; a 
chapel was the place of worship of the non-conformists. 



128 


Silas Marker 


the singing to the praise and glory ’o God, as 
Mr. Macey gives out—and Mr. Crackenthorp 
saying good words, and more particular on 
Sacramen’ Day; and if a bit o’ trouble comes, 
I feel as I can put up wi’ it, for Tve looked 
for help i’ the right quarter, and gev myself 
up to Them as we must all give ourselves up 
to at the last; and if we’n done our part, it 
is’nt to be believed as Them as are above us 
’ull be worse nor we are, and come short o’ 
Their’n.” 

Poor Dolly’s exposition of her simple Raveloe 
theology fell rather unmeaningly on Silas’s ears, 
for there was no word in it that could rouse a 
memory of what he had known as religion, and 
his comprehension was quite baffled by the plu¬ 
ral pronoun, which was no heresy of Dolly’s, 
but only her way of avoiding a presumptuous 
familiarity. He remained silent, not feeling 
inclined to assent to the part of Dolly’s speech 
which he fully understood—her recommendation 
that he should go to church. Indeed, Silas was 
so unaccustomed to talk beyond the brief ques¬ 
tions and answers necessary for the transaction 
of his simple business, that words did not easily 
come to him without the urgency of a distinct 
purpose. 

But now, little Aaron, having become used to 
the weaver’s awful presence, had advanced to 
his mother’s side, and Silas, seeming to notice 
him for the first time, tried to return Dolly’s 
signs of goodwill by offering the lad a bit of 
lard-cake. Aaron shrank back a little, and rub- 


Silas Marner 


129 


bed his head against his mother’s shoulder, but 
still thought the piece of cake worth the risk 
of putting his hand out for it. 

‘‘0, for shame, Aaron,” said his mother, tak¬ 
ing him on her lap, however; “why, you don’t 
want cake again yet awhile. He’s wonderful 
hearty,” she went on, with a little sigh—“that 
he is, God knows. He’s my youngest, and we 
spoil him sadly, for either me or the father 
must allays hev him in our sight—that we 
must.” 

She stroked Aaron’s brown head, and thought 
it must do Master Marner good to see such a 
“pictur of a child.” But Marner, on the other 
side of the hearth, saw the neat-featured rosy 
face as a mere dim round, with two dark spots 
in it. 

“And he’s got a voice like a bird—you 
wouldn’t think,” Dolly went on; “he can sing 
a Christmas carril as his father’s taught him; 
and I take it for a token as’ he’ll come to good, 
as he can learn the good tunes so quick. Come, 
Aaron, tan’ up and sing the carril to Master 
Marner, come.” 

Aaron replied by rubbing his forehead against 
his mother’s shoulder. 

“0, that’s naughty,” said Dolly, gently. “Stan’ 
up, when mother tells you, and let me hold the 
cake till you’ve done.” 

Aaron was not indisposed to display his tal¬ 
ents, even to an ogre, under protecting circum¬ 
stances ; and after a few more signs of coy¬ 
ness, consisting chiefly in rubbing the backs 


130 


Silas Marker 


of his hands over his eyes, and then peeping 
between them at Master Marner, to see if he 
looked anxious for the ^^carril,” he at length al¬ 
lowed his head to be duly adjusted, and stand¬ 
ing behind the table, which let him appear above 
it only as far as his broad frill, so that he looked 
like a cherubic head untroubled with a body, he 
began with a clear chirp, and in a melody that 
had the rh3rthm of an industrious hammer,— 
‘'God rest you, merry gentlemen. 

Let nothing you dismay. 

For Jesus Christ our Saviour 
Was born on Christmas-day.’' 

Dolly listened with a devout look, glancing 
at Marner in some confidence that this strain 
would help to allure him to church. 

“That’s Christmas music,” she said, when 
Aaron had ended, and had secured his piece of 
cake again. “There’s no other music equil to 
the Christmas music—‘Hark the erol angils 
sing.’ And you may judge what it is at church. 
Master Marner, with the bassoon and the voices, 
as you can’t help thinking you’ve got to a bet¬ 
ter place a’ready—^for I wouldn’t speak ill o’ 
this world, seeing as Them put us in it as knows 
best; but what wi’ the drink, and the quarrel¬ 
ling, and the bad illnesses, and the hard dying, 
as I’ve seen times and times, one’s thankful to 
hear of a better. The boy sings pretty, don’t 
he. Master Marner?” 

“Yes,” said Silas, absently, “very pretty.” 

The Christmas carol, with its hammer-like 
rhythm, had fallen on his ears as strange music. 


Silas Marker 


131 


quite unlike a hymn, and could have none of 
the effect Dolly contemplated. But he wanted 
to show her that he was grateful, and the only 
mode that occurred to him was to offer Aaron 
a bit more cake. 

“0 no, thank you. Master Marner,'’ said Dol¬ 
ly, holding down Aaron's willing hands. '‘We 
must be going home now. And so I wish you 
good-by. Master Marner; and if you ever feel 
anyways bad in your inside, as you can't fend 
for yourself. I’ll come and clean up for you, 
and get you a bit o' victual, and willing. But 
I beg and pray of you to leave off weaving of 
a Sunday, for it’s bad for soul and body—and 
the money as comes i' that way 'ull be a bad 
bed to lie down on at the last, if it doesn't fly 
away, nobody knows where, like the white frost. 
And you'll excuse me being that free with you, 
Master Marner, for I wish you well—I do. 
Make your bow, Aaron." 

Silas said "Good-by, and thank you kindly," 
as he opened the door for Dolly, but he couldn't 
help feeling relieved when she was gone—relieved 
that he might weave again and moan at his 
ease. Her simple view of life and its comforts 
by which she had tried to cheer him, was only 
like a report of unknown objects, which his im¬ 
agination could not fashion. The fountains of 
human love and divine faith had not yet been 
unlocked, and his soul was still the shrunken 
rivulet, with only this difference, that its little 
groove of sand was blocked up, and it wan¬ 
dered confusedly against dark obstruction. 


132 


Silas Marner 


And so, notwithstanding the honest persuasions 
of Mr. Macey and Dolly Winthrop, Silas spent 
his Christmas-day in loneliness, eating his meat 
in sadness of heart, though the meat had come 
to him as a neighbourly present. In the morning 
he looked out on the black frost that seemed' 
to press cruelly on every blade of grass, while 
the half-icy red pool shivered under the bitter 
wind; but towards evening the snow began to 
fall, and curtained from him even that dreary 
outlook, shutting him close up with his narrow 
grief. And he sat in his robbed home through 
the livelong evening, not caring to close his 
shutters or lock his door, pressing his head be¬ 
tween his hands and moaning, till the cold 
grasped him and told him that his fire was grey. 

Nobody in this world but himself knew that 
he was the same Silas Marner who had once 
loved his fellow with tender love, and trusted 
in an unseen goodness. Even to himself that 
past experience had become dim. 

But in Raveloe village the bells rang merrily, 
and the church was fuller than all through the 
rest of the year, with red faces among the abund¬ 
ant dark-green boughs—faces prepared for a 
longer service than usual by an odorous break¬ 
fast of toast and ale. Those green boughs, the 
hymn and anthem never heard but at Christ¬ 
mas—even the Athanasian Creed, which was 
discriminated from the others only as being 
longer and of exceptional virtue, since it was 
only read on rare occasions—brought a vague 
exulting sense, for which the grown men could 


Silas Marner 


133 


as little have found words as the children, that 
something great and mysterious had been done 
for them in heaven above, and in earth below, 
which they were appropriating by their pres¬ 
ence. And then the red faces made their way 
through the black biting frost to' their own 
homes, feeling themselves free for the rest 
of the day to eat, drink, and be merry, and using 
that Christian freedom without diffidence. 

At Squire Cass’s family party that day nobody 
mentioned Dunstan—nobody was sorry for his 
absence, or feared it would be too long. The 
doctor and his wife, uncle and aunt Kimble, 
were there, and the annual Christmas talk was 
carried through without any omissions, rising 
to the climax of Mr. Kimble’s experience when 
he walked the London hospitals thirty years 
back, together with striking professional anec¬ 
dotes then gathered. Whereupon cards fol¬ 
lowed, with aunt Kimble’s annual failure to fol¬ 
low suit, and uncle Kimble’s irascibility concern¬ 
ing the odd trick which was rarely explicable 
to him, when it was not on his side, without 
a general visitation of tricks to see that they 
were formed on sound principles: the whole be¬ 
ing accompanied by a strong steaming odour of 
spirits-and-water. 

But the party on Christmas-day, being a strict¬ 
ly family party, was not the pre-eminently bril¬ 
liant celebration of the season at the Red House. 
It was the great dance on New Year’s Eve that 
made the glory of Squire Cass’s hospitality, as 
of his forefathers’, time out of mind. This was 


134 


Silas Marner 


the occasion when all the society of Raveloe and 
Tarley, whether old acquaintances separated 
by long rutty distances, or cooled acquaintances 
separated by misunderstandings concerning run¬ 
away calves, or acquaintances founded on inter¬ 
mittent condescension, counted on meeting and 
on comporting themselves with mutual appro¬ 
priateness. This was the occasion on which fair 
dames who came on pillions sent their band- 
boxes before them, supplied with more than 
their evening costume; for the feast was not to 
end with a single evening, like a paltry town 
entertainment, where the whole supply of eat¬ 
ables is put on the table at once, and bedding 
is scanty. The Red House was provisioned as 
if for a siege; and as for the spare feather¬ 
beds ready to be laid on floors, they were as 
plentiful as might naturally be expected in a 
family that had killed its own geese for many 
generations. 

Godfrey Cass was looking forward to this New 
Year’s Eve with a foolish reckless longing, that 
made him half deaf to his importunate com¬ 
panion, Anxiety. 

“Dunsey will be coming home soon: there will 
be a great blow-up, and how will you bribe his 
spite to silence?” said Anxiety. 

'‘0, he won’t come before New Year’s Eve, 
perhaps,” said Godfrey; “and I shall sit by 
Nancy then, and dance with her, and get a 
kind look from her in spite of herself.” 

“But money is wanted in another quarter,” 
said Anxiety in a louder voice, “and how will 


Silas Marker 


135 


you get it without selling your mother's dia¬ 
mond pin? And if you don’t get it. . . .?” 

^‘Well, but something may happen to make 
things easier. At any rate, there’s one pleasure 
for me close at hand: Nancy is coming.” 

“Yes, and suppose your father should bring 
matters to a pass that will oblige you to de¬ 
cline marrying her— and to give your reasons?” 

“Hold your tongue, and don’t worry me. I 
can see Nancy’s eyes, just as they will look at me, 
and feel her hand in mine already.” 

But Anxiety went on, though in noisy Christ¬ 
mas company; refusing to be utterly quieted 
even by much drinking. 


CHAPTER XI 


Some women, I grant, would not appear to ad¬ 
vantage seated on a pillion, and attired in a 
drab Joseph’ and a drab beaver-bonnet, with a 
crown resembling a small stew-pan; for a gar¬ 
ment suggesting a coachman’s great-coat, cut 
out under an exiguity’^ of cloth that would only 
allow of miniature capes, is not well adapted 
to conceal deficiencies of contour, nor is drab 
a colour that will throw sallow cheeks into live¬ 
ly contrast. It was all the greater triumph to 
Miss Nancy Lammeter’s beauty that she looked 
thoroughly bewitching in that costume, as, 
seated on the pillion behind her tall, erect fath¬ 
er, she held one arm round him, and looked 
down, with open-eyed anxiety, at the treach¬ 
erous snow-covered pools and puddles, which 
sent up formidable splashings of mud under 
the stamp of Dobbin’s foot. A painter would, 
perhaps, have preferred her in those moments 
when she was free from self-consciousness; but 
certainly the bloom on her cheeks was at its 
highest point of contrast with the surrounding 
drab when she arrived at the door of the Red 
House, and saw Mr. Godfrey Cass ready to lift 
her from the pillion. She wished her sister 
Priscilla had come up at the same time with 
the servant, for then she would have contrived 
that Mr. Godfrey should have lifted off Pris- 

’A riding cloak worn in the IStli century, chiefly by wo¬ 
men. — W'ehster. 

-ex i gu' i ty=scantiness. 

[ 136 ] 



Silas Marker 


137 


cilia first, and, in the meantime, she would 
have persuaded her father to go round to the 
horse-block instead of alighting at the door¬ 
steps. It was very painful, when you had made 
it quite clear to a young man that you were de¬ 
termined not to marry him, however much he 
might wish it, that he would still continue to 
pay you marked attentions; besides, why didn’t 
he always show the same attentions, if he meant 
them sincerely, instead of being so strange as 
Mr. Godfrey Cass was, sometimes behaving as 
if he didn’t want to speak to her, and taking no 
notice of her for weeks and weeks, and then, 
all on a sudden, almost making love again? 
Moreover, it was quite plain he had no real 
love for her, else he would not let people have 
that to say of him which they did say. Did he 
suppose that Miss Nancy Lammeter was to be 
won by any man, squire or no squire, who led 
a bad life? That was not what she had been 
used to see in her own father, who was the sober¬ 
est and best man in that country-side, only 
a little hot and hasty now and then, if things were 
not done to the minute. 

All these thoughts rushed through Miss 
Nancy’s mind, in their habitual succession, in 
the moments between her first sight of Mr. 
Godfrey Cass standing at the door and her own 
arrival there. Happily, the Squire came out too 
and gave a loud greeting to her father, so that, 
somehow, under cover of this noise, she seemed 
to find concealment for her confusion and neg¬ 
lect of any suitably formal behaviour, while 


138 


Silas Marker 


she was being lifted from the pillion by strong 
arms, which seemed to find her ridiculously 
small and light. And there was the best rea¬ 
son for hastening into the house at once, since 
the snow was beginning to fall again, threaten¬ 
ing an unpleasant journey for such guests as 
were still on the road. These were a small 
minority; for already the afternoon was be¬ 
ginning to decline, and there would not be too 
much time for the ladies who came from a dis¬ 
tance to attire themselves in readiness for the 
early tea which was to inspirit them for the 
dance. 

There was a buzz of voices through the house, 
as Miss Nancy entered, mingled with the scrape 
of a fiddle preluding in the kitchen; but the 
Lammeters were guests whose arrival had evi¬ 
dently been thought of so much that it had 
been watched for from the windows, for Mrs. 
Kimble, who did the honours at the Red House 
on these great occasions, came forward to meet 
Miss Nancy in the hall, and conduct her up¬ 
stairs. Mrs. Kimble was the Squire’s sister, as 
well as the doctor’s wife—a double dignity, 
with which her diameter was in direct propor¬ 
tion; so that, a journey up-stairs being rather 
fatiguing to her, she did not oppose Miss Nan¬ 
cy’s request to be allowed to find her way alone 
to the Blue Room, where the Miss Lammeters’ 
bandboxes had been deposited on their arrival 
in the morning. 

There was hardly a bedroom in the house 
where feminine compliments were not passing 


Silas Marker 


139 


and feminine toilettes going forward, in various 
stages, in space made scanty by extra beds 
spread upon the floor; and Miss Nancy, as 
she entered the Blue Room, had to make her lit¬ 
tle formal curtsy to a group of six. On the one 
hand, there were ladies no less important than 
the two Miss Gunns, the wine merchant’s daugh¬ 
ters from Lytherly, dressed in the height of 
fashion, with the tightest skirts and the short¬ 
est waists, and gazed at by Miss Ladbrook (of 
the Old Pastures) with a shyness not unsus¬ 
tained by inward criticism. Partly, Miss Lad- 
brook felt that her own skirt must be regarded 
as unduly lax by the Miss Gunns, and partly, 
that it was a pity the Miss Gunns did not 
show that judgment which she herself would 
show if she were in their place, by stopping 
a little on this side of the fashion. On the other 
hand, Mrs. Ladbrook was standing in skullcap* 
and front, with her turban in her hand, curtsy¬ 
ing and smiling blandly and saying, ‘‘After 
you, ma’am,” to another lady in similar cir¬ 
cumstances, who had politely offered the prece¬ 
dence at the looking glass. 

But Miss Nancy had no sooner made her curt¬ 
sy than an elderly lady came forward, whose 
full white muslin kerchief, and mob-cap round 
her curls of smooth grey hair, were in daring 
contrast with the puffed yellow satins and top- 
knotted caps of her neighbours. She approached 
Miss Nancy with much primness, and said, with 
a slow, treble suavity— 

“Niece, I hope I see you well in health.” Miss 


140 


Silas Marner 


Nancy kissed her aunt’s cheek dutifully, and an¬ 
swered, with the same sort of amiable prim¬ 
ness, "‘Quite well, I thank you, aunt; and I hope 
I see you the same.” 

“Thank you, niece; I keep my health for the 
present. And how is my brother-in-law?” 

These dutiful questions and answers were con¬ 
tinued until it was ascertained in detail that 
the Lammeters were all as well as usual, and 
the Osgoods likewise, also that niece Priscilla 
must certainly arrive shortly, and that travel¬ 
ling on pillions in snowy weather was unpleas¬ 
ant, though a Joseph was a great protection. 
Then Nancy was formally introduced to her 
aunt’s visitors, the Miss Gunns, as being the 
daughters of a mother known to their mother, 
though now for the first time induced to make 
a journey into these parts; and these ladies 
tvere so taken by surprise at finding such a 
lovely face and figure in an out-of-the-way 
country place, that they began to feel some 
curiosity about the dress she would put on when 
she took off her Joseph. Miss Nancy, whose 
thoughts were always conducted with the pro¬ 
priety and moderation conspicuous in her man¬ 
ners, remarked to herself that the Miss Gunns 
were rather hard featured than otherwise, and 
that such very low dresses as they wore might 
have been attributed to vanity if their shoulders 
had been pretty, but that, being as they were, 
it was not reasonable to suppose that they show¬ 
ed their necks from a love of display, but rath¬ 
er from some obligation not inconsistent with 


Silas Marker 


141 


sense and modesty. She felt convinced, as she 
opened her box, that this must be her aunt Os¬ 
good’s opinion, for Miss Nancy’s mind resem¬ 
bled her aunt’s to a degree that everybody said 
was surprising, considering the kinship was on 
Mr. Osgood’s side; and though you might not 
have supposed it from the formality of their 
greeting, there was a devoted attachment and 
mutual admiration between aunt and niece. 
Even Miss Nancy’s refusal of her cousin Gil¬ 
bert Osgood (on the ground solely that he 
was her cousin), though it had grieved her aunt 
greatly, had not in the least cooled the prefer¬ 
ence which had determined her to leave Nancy 
several of her hereditary ornaments, let Gil¬ 
bert’s future wife be whom she might. 

Three of the ladies quickly retired, but the 
Miss Gunns were quite content that Mrs. Os¬ 
good’s inclination to remain with her niece 
gave them also a reason for staying to see the 
rustic beauty’s toilette. And it was really a 
pleasure—from the first opening of the band- 
box, where everything smelt of lavender and 
rose-leaves, to the clasping of the small coral 
necklace that fitted closely round her little white 
neck. Everything belonging to Miss Nancy was 
of delicate purity and nattiness: not a crease 
was where it had no business to be, not a bit of 
her linen professed whiteness without fulfilling 
its profession; the very pins on her pincushion 
were stuck in after a pattern from which she 
was careful to allow no aberration; and as for 
her own person, it gave the same idea of per- 


142 


Silas Marner 


feet unvarying neatness as the body of a lit¬ 
tle bird. It is true that her light-brown hair 
was cropped behind like a boy’s, and was dress¬ 
ed in front in a number of flat rings, that lay 
quite away from her face; but there was no sort 
of coiffure that could make Miss Nancy’s cheek 
and neck look otherwise than pretty; and when 
at last she stood complete in her silvery twilled 
silk, her lace tucker, her coral necklace, and cor¬ 
al ear-drops, the Miss Gunns could see nothing to 
criticise except her hands, which bore the traces 
of butter-making, cheese-crushing, and even still 
coarser work. But Miss Nancy was not ashamed 
of that, for while she was dressing she nar¬ 
rated to her aunt how she and Priscilla had 
packed their boxes yesterday, because this morn¬ 
ing was baking morning, and since they were 
leaving home, it was desirable to make a good 
supply of meat-pies for the kitchen; and as 
she concluded this judicious remark, she turned 
to the Miss Gunns that she might not commit 
the rudeness of not including them in the con¬ 
versation. The Miss Gunns smiled stiffly, and 
thought what a pity it was that these rich coun¬ 
try people, who could afford to buy such good 
clothes (really Miss Nancy’s lace and silk were 
very costly), should be brought up in utter 
ignorance and vulgarity. She actually said 
‘"mate” for “meat,” “’appen” for “perhaps,” and 
“oss” for “horse,” which to young ladies living 
in good Lytherly society, who habitually said 
’orse, even in domestic privacy, and only said 
’appen on the right occasions, was necessarily 


Silas Marker 


143 


shocking. Miss Nancy, indeed, had never been 
to any school higher than Dame Tedman’s: her 
acquaintance with profane literature hardly 
went beyond the rhymes she had worked in her 
large sampler under the lamb and the shepher¬ 
dess; and in order to balance an account, she 
was obliged to effect her subtraction by remov¬ 
ing visible metallic shillings and sixpences from 
a visible metallic total. There is hardly a ser¬ 
vant-maid in these days who is not better in¬ 
formed than Miss Nancy; yet she had the es¬ 
sential attributes of a lady—high veracity, del¬ 
icate honour in her dealings, deference to oth¬ 
ers, and refined personal habits,—and lest these 
should not suffice to convince grammatical fair 
ones that her feelings can at all resemble theirs, 
I will add that she wa^ slightly proud and 
exacting, and as constant in her affection to¬ 
wards a baseless opinion as towards an erring 
lover. 

The anxiety about sister Priscilla, which had 
grown rather active by the time the coral neck¬ 
lace was clasped, was happily ended by the en¬ 
trance of that cheerful-looking lady herself; 
with a face made blowsy by cold and damp. 
After the first questions and greetings, she turn¬ 
ed to Nancy, and surveyed her from head to 
foot—then wheeled her round, to ascertain that 
the back view was equally faultless. 

'‘What do you think o’ these gowns, aunt Os¬ 
good?” said Priscilla, while Nancy helped her 
to unrobe. 

“Very handsome indeed, niece,'’ said Mrs. 


144 


Silas Marker 


Osgood, with a slight increase of formality. She 
always thought niece Priscilla too rough. 

'‘I’m obliged to have the same as Nancy, you 
know, for all I’m five years older, and it makes 
me look yallow; for she never will have any¬ 
thing without I have mine just like it, because 
she wants us to look like sisters. And I tell her, 
folks ’ull think it’s my weakness makes me fancy 
as I shall look pretty in what she looks pretty 
in. For I am ugly—there’s no denying that: 
I feature my father’s family. But, law! I don’t 
mind, do you?” Priscilla here turned to the 
Miss Gunns, rattling on in too much preoc¬ 
cupation with the delight of talking, to notice 
that her candour was not appreciated. “The 
pretty uns do for fly-catchers—they keep the men 
off us. I’ve no opinion o’ the men. Miss Gunn 
—I don’t know what you have. And as for fret¬ 
ting and stewing about what they'll think of 
you from morning till night, and making your 
life uneasy about what they’re doing when 
they’re out d’ your sight—as I tell Nancy, it’s 
a folly no woman needs be guilty of, if she’s 
got a good father and a good home: let her 
leave it to them as have got no fortin, and can’t 
help themselves. As I say, Mr. Have-your-own- 
way is the best husband, and the only one I’d 
ever promise to obey. I know it isn’t pleasant, 
when you’ve been used to living in a big way, 
and managing hogsheads and all that, to go 
and put your nose in by somebody else’s fireside, 
or to sit down by yourself to a scrag or a knuckle’; 

^Scrag=the lean end of a neck of mutton or veal; knuckle 
=jomt. 



Silas Marker 


145 


but, thank God! my father’s a sober man 
and likely to live; and if you’ve got a man by 
the chimney-corner, it doesn’t matter if he’s 
childish—the business needn’t be broke up.” 

The delicate process of getting her narrow 
gown over her head without injury to her smooth 
curls, obliged Miss Priscilla to pause in this 
rapid survey of life, and Mrs. Osgood seized 
the opportunity of rising, and saying—> 

“Well, niece, you’ll follow us. The Miss 
Gunns will like to go down.” 

“Sister,” said Nancy, when they were alone, 
“you’ve offended the Miss Gunns, I’m sure.” 

“What have I done, child?” said Priscilla, in 
some alarm. 

“Why, you asked them if they minded about 
being ugly—you’re so very blunt.” 

“Law, did I? Well, it popped out: it’s a mer¬ 
cy I said no more, for I’m a bad un to live with 
folks when they don’t like the truth. But as 
for being ugly, look at me, child, in this silver- 
coloured silk—I told you how it ’ud be—I look 
as yallow as a daffadil. Anybody ’ud say you 
wanted to make a mawkin' of me.” 

“No, Priscy, don’t say so. I begged and pray¬ 
ed of you not to let us have this silk if you’d 
like another better. I was willing to have your 
choice, you know I was,” said Nancy, in anxious 
self-vindication. 

“Nonsense, child, you know you’d set your 
heart on this; and reason good, for you’re the 


Wariant of malkin—scarecrow, here. 



146 


Silas Marker 


colour o’ cream. It ’ud be fine doings for you to 
dress yourself to suit my skin. What I find 
fault with, is that notion o’ yours as I must 
dress myself just like you. But you do as you 
like with me—you always did, from when first 
you begun to walk. If you wanted to go tne 
field’s length, the field’s length you’d go; and 
there was no whipping you, for you looked as 
prim and innicent as a daisy all the while.” 

“Priscy,” said Nancy, gently, as she fastened 
a coral necklace, exactly like her own, round 
Priscilla’s neck, which was very far from being 
like her own, “I’m sure I’m willing to give way 
as far as is right, but who shouldn’t dress alike 
if it isn’t sisters? Would you have us go about 
looking as if we were no kin to one another—us 
that have got no mother and not another sis¬ 
ter in the world? I’d do what was right, if I 
dressed in a gown dyed with cheese-colouring; 
and I’d rather you’d choose, and let me wear 
what pleases you.” 

“There you go again! You’d come round to 
the same thing if one talked to you from Satur¬ 
day night till Saturday morning. It’ll be fine 
fun to see how you’ll master your husband and 
never raise your voice above the singing o’ the 
kettle all the while. I like to see the men mas¬ 
tered I” 

“Don’t talk so, Priscy,” said Nancy, blushing. 
“You know I don’t mean ever to be married.” 

“Oh, you never mean a fiddlestick’s end 1” said 
Priscilla, as she arranged her discarded dress, 
and closed her bandbox. “Who shall / have to 


Silas Marker 


14? 


work for when father’s gone, if you are to 
go and take notions in your head and be an 
old maid, because some folks are no better than 
they should be? I haven’t a bit o’ patience with 
you—sitting on an addled egg for ever, as if 
there was never a fresh un in the world. One 
old maid’s enough out o’ two sisters; and I 
shall do credit to a single life, for God A’migh- 
ty meant me for it. Come, we can go down 
now. I’m as ready as a mawkin can be—there’s 
nothing awanting to frighten the crows, now 
I’ve got my ear-droppers in.” 

As the two Miss Lammeters walked into the 
large parlour together, any one who did not 
know the character of both might certainly have 
supposed that the reason why the square¬ 
shouldered, clumsy, high-featured Priscilla wore 
a dress the facsimile of her pretty sister’s, was 
either the mistaken vanity of the one, or the 
malicious contrivance of the other in order to 
set off her own rare beauty. But the good na- 
tured self-forgetful cheeriness and common-sense 
of Priscilla would soon have dissipated the one 
suspicion; and the modest calm of Nancy’s 
speech and manners told clearly of a mind free 
from all disavowed devices. 

Places of honour had been kept for the Miss 
Lammeters near the head of the principal tea- 
table in the wainscoted parlour, now looking 
fresh and pleasant with handsome branches of 
holly, yew, and laurel, from the abundant 
gro'wths of the old garden; and Nancy felt an 
inward flutter, that no firmness of purpose could 


148 


Silas Marner 


prevent, when she'saw Mr. Godfrey Cass ad¬ 
vancing to lead her to a seat between himself 
and Mr. Crackenthorp, while Priscilla was called 
to the opposite side between her father and 
the Squire. It certainly did make some differ¬ 
ence to Nancy that the lover she had given up 
was the young man of quite the highest conse¬ 
quence in the parish—at home in a venerable 
and unique parlour, which was the extremity of 
grandeur in her experience, a parlour where she 
might one day have been mistress, with the con¬ 
sciousness that she was spoken of as ‘‘Madam 
Cass,'' the Squire's wife. These circumstances 
exalted her inward drama in her own eyes, and 
deepened the emphasis with which she declared 
to herself that not the most dazzling rank 
should induce her to marry a man whose con¬ 
duct showed him careless of his character, but 
that, “love once, love always," was the motto 
of a true and pure woman, and no man should 
ever have any right over her which would be 
a call on her to destroy the dried flowers that 
she treasured, and always would treasure, for 
Godfrey Cass’s sake. And Nancy was capable 
of keeping her word to herself under very trying 
conditions. Nothing but a becoming blush be¬ 
trayed the moving thoughts that urged them¬ 
selves upon her as she accepted the seat next to 
Mr. Crackenthorp; for she was so instinctively 
neat and adroit in all her actions, and her pretty 
lips met each other with such quiet firmness, 
that it would have been difficult for her to ap¬ 
pear agitated. 


Silas Marner 


149 


It was not the Rector’s practice to let a charm¬ 
ing blush pass without an appropriate com¬ 
pliment. He was not in the least lofty or aristo¬ 
cratic, but simply a merry-eyed, small-featured, 
grey-haired man, with his chin propped by an 
ample many-creased white neckcloth which 
seemed to predominate over every other point 
in his person, and somehow to’nmpress its pe¬ 
culiar character on his remarks; so that to 
have considered his amenities apart from his 
cravat would have been a severe, and perhaps 
a dangerous, effort of abstraction. 

"‘Ha, Miss Nancy,” he said, turning his head 
within his cravat and smiling down pleasantly 
upon her, 'Vhen anybody pretends this has been 
a severe winter, I shall tell them I saw the roses 
blooming on New Year’s Eve—eh, Godfrey, what 
do ^ 02 ^ say?” 

Godfrey made no reply, and avoided looking 
at Nancy very markedly; for though these com¬ 
plimentary personalities were held to be in ex¬ 
cellent taste in old-fashioned Raveloe society, 
reverent love has a politeness of its own which 
it teaches to men otherwise of small schooling. 
But the iSquire was rather impatient at God¬ 
frey’s showing himself a dull spark in this way. 
By this advanced hour of the day, the Squire 
was always in higher spirits than we have seen 
him in at the breakfast-table, and felt it quite 
pleasant to fulfill the hereditary duty of be¬ 
ing noisily jovial and patronising: the large sil¬ 
ver snuff-box was in active service, and was 
offered Without fail to all neighbours from 


150 


Silas Marner 


time to time, however often they might have de¬ 
clined the favour. At present, the Squire had 
only given an express welcome to the heads 
of families as they appeared; but always as the 
evening deepened, his hospitality rayed out more 
widely, till he had tapped the youngest guests 
on the back and shown a peculiar fondness for 
their presence^ln the full belief that they must 
feel their lives made happy by their belonging 
to a parish where there was such a hearty man 
as Squire Cass to invite them and wish them 
well. Even in this early stage of the jovial mood, 
it was natural that he should wish to supply his 
son’s deficiencies by looking and speaking for 
him. 

“Ay, ay,” he began, offering his snuff-box 
to Mr. Lammeter, who for the second time 
bowed his head and waved his hand in stiff 
rejection of the offer, “us old fellows may wish 
ourselves young to-night, when we see the 
misletoe-bough in the White Parlour. It’s true, 
most things are gone back’ard in these last 
thirty years—^the country’s going down since the 
old king fell ill. But when I look at Miss Nancy 
here, I begin to think the lasses keep up their 
quality;—ding me if I. remember a sample to 
match her, not when I was a fine young fellow, 
and thought a deal about my pigtail?'— No 
offence to you, madam,” he added, bending to 
Mrs. Crackenthorp, who sat by him; “I didn’t 


^Pigtail=a que or or plait of hair. The author keeps the 
time of the story before us by mentioning old-fashioned dress. 



Silas Marner 


151 


know you when you were as young as Miss 
Nancy here/' 

Mrs. Crackenthorp—a small blinking woman, 
who fidgeted incessantly with her lace, ribbons, 
and gold chain, turning her head about and 
making subdued noises,, very much like a 
guinea-pig that twitches its nose and soliloquises 
in all company indiscriminately—now blinked 
and fidgeted towards the Squire, and said, '‘Oh 
no—no offence.” 

This emphatic compliment of the Squire’s to 
Nancy was felt by others besides Godfrey to 
have a diplomatic significance; and her father 
gave a slight additional erectness to his back, 
as he looked across the table at her with com¬ 
placent gravity. That grave and orderly senior 
was not going to bate a jot of his dignity by 
seeming elated at the notion of a match between 
his family and the Squire’s: he was gratified 
by any honour paid to his daughter; but he 
must see an alteration in several ways before 
his consent would be vouchsafed. His spare 
but healthy person, and high-featured firm 
face, that looked as if it had never been flushed 
by excess, was in strong contrast, not only with 
the Squire’s, but with the appearance of the 
Kaveloe farmers generally—in accordance with 
a favourite saying of his own, that “breed was 
stronger than pasture.” 

“Miss Nancy’s wonderful like what her moth¬ 
er was, though; isn’t she, Kimble?” said the 
stout lady of that name, looking round for her 
husband. 


152 


Silas Marner 


But Doctor Kimble (country apothecaries in 
old days enjoyed that title without authority of 
diploma), being a thin and agile man, was flit¬ 
ting about the room with his hands in his 
pockets, making himself agreeable to his femin¬ 
ine patients, with medical impartiality, and be¬ 
ing welcomed everywhere as a doctor by heredi¬ 
tary right—not one of those miserable apothe¬ 
caries who canvass for practice in strange neigh¬ 
bourhoods, and spend all their income in starv¬ 
ing their one horse, but a man of substance, 
able to keep an extravagant table like the best 
of his patients. Time out of mind the Raveloe 
doctor had been a Kimble; Kimble was inherent¬ 
ly a doctor’s name; and it was difficult to con¬ 
template firmly the melancholy fact that the ac¬ 
tual Kimble had no son, so that his practice 
might one day be handed over to a successor 
with the incongruous name of Taylor or John¬ 
son. But in that case the wiser people in 
Raveloe would employ Dr. Blick of Flitton—as 
less unnatural. 

“Did you speak to me, my dear?” said the 
authentic doctor, coming quickly to his wife’s 
side; but, as if foreseeing that she would be too 
much out of breath to repeat her remark, he 
went on immediately—“Ha, Miss Priscilla, the 
sight of you revives the taste of that super-ex¬ 
cellent pork-pie. I hope the batch isn’t near an 
end.” 

“Yes, indeed, it is, doctor,” said Priscilla; 
“but I’ll answer for it the next shall be as good. 
My pork-pies don’t turn out well by chance.” 


Silas Marker 


153 


‘'Not as your doctoring does, eh, Kimble?—• 
because folks forget to take your physic, eh?’’ 
said the Squire, who regarded physic and doc¬ 
tors as many loyal churchmen regard the church 
and the clergy—tasting a joke against them 
when he was in health, but impatiently eager for 
their aid when anything was the matter with 
him. He tapped his box, and looked round with 
a triumphant laugh. 

“Ah, she has a quick wit, my friend Priscilla 
has,’^ said the doctor, choosing to attribute the 
epigram to the lady rather than allow a brother- 
in-law that advantage over him. “She saves a 
little pepper to sprinkle over her talk—that’s the 
reason why she never puts too much into her 
pies. There’s my wife, now, she never has an 
answer at her tongue’s end; but if I offend her, 
she’s sure to scarify my throat with black pep¬ 
per the next day, or else give me the colic with 
watery greens. That’s an awful tit-for-tat.” 
Here the vivacious doctor made a pathetic grim¬ 
ace. 

“Did you ever hear the like?” said Mrs. Kim¬ 
ble, laughing above her double chin with much 
good-humour, aside to Mrs. Crackenthorp, who 
blinked and nodded, and seemed to intend a 
smile, which, by the correlation of forces went 
off in small twitchings and noises. 

“I suppo'se that’s the sort of tit-for-tat ad¬ 
opted in your profession, Kimble, If you’ve a 
grudge against a patient,” said the rector. 

“Never do have a grudge against our pa¬ 
tients,” said Mr. Kimble, “except when they leave 


154 


Silas Marner 


us: and then, you see, we haven't the chance of 
prescribing for 'em. Ha, Miss Nancy," he con¬ 
tinued, suddenly skipping to Nancy's side, ‘‘yoi^ 
won't forget your promise? You're to save a 
dance for me, you know." 

“Come, come, Kimble, don't you be too for- 
'ard," said the Squire. “Give the young uns 
fair-play. There's my son Godfrey 'll be want¬ 
ing to have a round with you if you run off with 
Miss Nancy. He's bespoke her for the first 
dance. I'll be bound. Eh, sir! what do you say?" 
he continued, throwing himself backward, and 
looking at Godfrey. “Haven't you asked Miss 
Nancy to open the dance with you?" 

Godfrey, sorely uncomfortable under this sig¬ 
nificant insistence about Nancy, and afraid to 
think where it would end by the time his father 
had set his usual hospitable example of drink¬ 
ing before and ..after supper, saw no course open 
but to turn to Nancy and say, with as little 
awkwardness as possible— 

“No; I've not asked her yet, but I hope she'll 
consent-—if somebody else hasn't been before 
me." 

“No, I've not engaged myself," said Nancy, 
quietly, though blushingly. (If Mr. Godfrey 
founded any hopes on her consenting to dance 
with him, he would soon be undeceived; but 
there was no need for her to be uncivil.) 

“Then I hope you've no objections to dancing 
with me," said Godfrey, beginning to lose the 
sense that there was anything uncomfortable in 
this arrangement. 


Silas Marner 


155 


'‘No, no objections,’’ said Nancy, in a cold 
tone. 

“Ah, well, you’re a lucky fellow, Godfrey,” 
said uncle Kimble; “but you’re my godson, so 
I won’t stand in your way. Else I’m not so very 
old, eh, my dear?” he went on, skipping to his 
wife’s side again. “You wouldn’t mind my 
having a second after you were gone—not if I 
cried a good deal first?” 

“Come, come, take a cup o’ tea and stop your 
tongue, ,do,” said good-humoured Mrs. Kimble, 
feeling some pride in a husband who must be 
regarded as so clever and amusing by the com¬ 
pany generally. If he had only not been irrit¬ 
able at cards! 

While safe, well-tested personalities were en¬ 
livening the tea in this way, the sound of the 
fiddle approaching within a distance at which it 
could be heard distinctly, made the young peo¬ 
ple look at each other with sympathetic impa¬ 
tience for the end of the meal. 

“Why, there’s Solomon in the hall,” said the 
Squire, “and playing my fav’rite tune, I believe 
—‘The flaxen-headed ploughboy’—he’s for giving 
us a hint as we aren’t enough in a hurry to 
hear him play. Bob,” he called out to his third 
long-legged son, who was at the other end of the 
room, “open the door, and tell Solomon to come 
in. He shall give us a tune here.” 

Bob obeyed, and Solomon walked in, fiddling 
as he walked, for he would on no account break 
off in the middle of a tune. 

“Here, Solomon,” said the Squire, with loud 


156 


Silas Marner 


patronage. '‘Round here, my man. Ah, I knew 
it was ‘The flaxen-headed ploughboy’: there’s no 
flner tune.” 

Solomon Macey, a small hale old man, with an 
abundant crop of long white hair reaching near¬ 
ly to his shoulders, advanced to the indicated 
spot, bowing reverently while he Addled, as much 
as to say that he respected the company though 
he respected the key-note more. As soon as he 
had repeated the tune and lowered his Addle, he 
bowed again to the Squire and the Rector, and 
said, “I hope I see your honour and your rev¬ 
erence well, and wishing you health and long 
life and a happy New Year. And wishing the 
same to you, Mr. Lammeter, sir; and to the 
other gentlemen, and the madams, and the young 
lasses.” 

As Solomon uttered the last words, he bowed 
in all directions solicitously, lest he should be 
wanting in due respect. But thereupon he im¬ 
mediately began to prelude, and fell into the 
tune which he knew would be taken as a special 
compliment by Mr. Lammeter. 

“Thank ye, Solomon, thank ye,” said Mr. 
Lammeter when the Addle paused again. “That’s 
‘Over the hills and far away,' that is. My father 
used to say to me, whenever we heard that tune, 
‘Ah, lad, I come from over the hills and far 
away.’ There’s a many tunes I don’t make head 
or tail of; but that speaks to me like the black¬ 
bird’s whistle. I suppose it’s the name: there’s 
a deal in the name of a tune.’' 

But Solomon was already impatient to pre- 


Silas Marner 


157 


lude again, and presently broke with much spirit 
into '‘Sir Roger de Coverley,'’ at which there 
was a sound of chairs pushed back, and laughing 
voices. 

"Ay, ay, Solomon, we know what that means,’’ 
said the Squire, rising. "It’s time to begin the 
dance, eh? Lead the way, then, and we’ll all 
follow you.” 

So Solomon, holding his white head on one 
side, and playing vigorously, marched forward 
at the head of the gay procession into the White 
Parlour, where the mistletoe-bough was hung, 
and multitudinous tallow candles made rather a 
brilliant effect, gleaming from among the ber¬ 
ried holly-boughs, and reflected in the old-fash¬ 
ioned oval mirrors fastened in the panels of the 
white wainscot. A quaint procession! Old Sol¬ 
omon, in his seedy clothes and long white locks, 
seemed to be luring that decent company by the 
magic scream of his fiddle—luring discreet ma¬ 
trons in turban-shaped caps, nay, Mrs. Cracken- 
thorp herself, the summit of whose perpendicular 
feather was on a level with the Squire’s shoulder 
—luring fair lasses complacently conscious of 
very short waists and skirts blameless of front- 
folds—burly fathers in large variegated waist¬ 
coats, and ruddy sons, for the most part shy 
and sheepish, in short nether garments and very 
long coat-tails. 

Already Mr. Macey and a few other privileged 
villagers, who were allowed to be spectators on 
these great occasions, were seated on benches 
placed for them near the door; and great was 


158 


Silas Marker 


the admiration and satisfaction in that quarter 
when the couples had formed themselves for 
the dance, and the Squire led off with Mrs. 
Crackenthorp, joining hands with the Rector 
and Mrs. Osgood: That was as it should be— 
that was what everybody had been used to— 
and the charter of Raveloe seemed to be renew¬ 
ed by the ceremony. It was not thought of as 
an unbecoming levity for the old and middle- 
aged people to dance a little before sitting down 
to cards, but rather as part of their social duties. 
For what were these if not to be merry at ap¬ 
propriate times, interchanging visits and poultry 
with due frequency, paying each other old- 
established compliments in sound traditional 
phrases, passing well-tried personal jokes, urg¬ 
ing your guests to eat and drink too much out 
of hospitality, and eating and drinking too much 
in your neighbour’s house to show that you liked 
your cheer? And the parson naturally set an 
example in these social duties. For it would not 
have been possible for the Raveloe mind, with¬ 
out a peculiar revelation, to know that a clergy¬ 
man should be a pale-faced memento of solem¬ 
nities, instead of a reasonably faulty man whose 
exclusive authority to read prayers and preach, 
to christen, marry, and bury you, necessarily 
coexisted with the right to sell you the ground 
to be buried in and to take tithe in kind'; on 
which last point, of course, there was a little 
grumbling, but not to the extent of irreligion— 
not beyond the grumbling at the rain, which was 

*^0 take tithes in trade or merchandise. 



Silas Marner 


159 


by no means accompanied with a spirit of im¬ 
pious defiance, but with a desire that the prayer 
for fine weather might be read forthwith. 

There was no reason, then, why the rector’s 
dancing should not be received as part of the fit¬ 
ness of things quite as much as the Squire’s, 
or why, on the other hand, Mr. Macey’s official 
respect should restrain him from subjecting the 
parson’s performance to that criticism with 
which minds of extraordinary acuteness must 
necessarily contemplate the doings of their fal¬ 
lible fellow-men. 

“The Squire’s pretty springe,^ considering his 
weight,” said Mr. Macey, “and he stamps un¬ 
common well. But Mr. Lammeter beats ’em all 
for shapes: you see he holds his head like a 
sodger, and he isn’t so cushiony as most o’ the 
oldish gentlefolks—they run fat in general; and 
he’s got a fine leg. The parson’s nimble enough, 
but he hasn’t got much of a leg: it’s a bit too 
thick down’ard, and his knees might be a bit 
nearer wi’out damage; but he might do worse, 
he might do worse. Though he hasn’t that 
grand way o’ waving his hand as the Squire 
has.” 

“Talk o’ nimbleness, look at Mrs. Osgood,” 
said Ben Winthrop, who was holding his son 
Aaron between his knees. “She trips along 
with her little steps, so as nobody can see how 
she goes—it’s like as if she had little wheels to 
her feet. She doesn’t look a day older nor last 


^Springe (sprinj) =supple, agile. (English dialect). 



160 


Silas Marner 


year: she’s the finest-made woman as is, let the 
next be where she will.” 

don’t heed how the women are made,” said 
Mr. Macey, with some contempt. '‘They wear 
nayther coat nor breeches: you can’t make much 
out o’ their shapes.” 

“Fayder,” said Aaron, whose feet were busy 
beating out the tune, “how does that big cock’s- 
feather stick in Mrs. Crackenthorp’s yead? Is 
there a little hole for it, like in my shuttle¬ 
cock?” 

“Hush, lad, hush; that’s the way the ladies 
dress theirselves, that is,” said the father, add¬ 
ing, however, in an under-tone to Mr. Macey. 
“It does make her look funny, though—partly 
like a short-necked bottle wi’ a long quill in it. 
Hey, by jingo, there’s the young Squire leading 
off now, wi’ Miss Nancy for partners! There’s 
a lass for you!—like a pink-and-white posy— 
there’s nobody ’ud think as anybody could be so 
pritty. I shouldn’t wonder if she’s Madam Cass 
some day, arter all—^and nobody more right- 
fuller, for they’d make a fine match. You can 
find nothing against Master Godfrey’s shapes, 
Macey, /’ll bet a penny.” 

Mr. Macey screwed up his mouth, leaned his 
head further on one side, and twirled his thumbs 
with a presto movement as his eyes followed 
Godfrey up the dance. At last he summed up 
his opinion. 

“Pretty well down-ard, but a bit too round i’ 
the shoulder-blades. And as for them coats as 


Silas Marner 


161 


he gets from the Flitton tailor, they’re a poor 
cut to pay double money for.” 

‘‘Ah, Mr. Macey, you and me are two folks,” 
said Ben, slightly indignant at this carping. 
“When I’ve got a pot o’ good ale, I like to swal- 
ler it, and do my inside good, i’stead o’ smelling 
and staring at it to see if I can’t find faut wi’ 
the brewing. I should like you to pick me out 
a finer-limbed young fellow nor Master God¬ 
frey—one as ’ud knock you down easier, or ’s 
more pleasanter looksed when he’s piert and 
merry.” 

“Tchuh!” said Mr. Macey, provoked to in¬ 
creased severity, “he isn’t come to his right 
colour yet: he’s partly like a slack-baked pie. 
And I doubt he’s got a soft place in his head, 
else why should he be turned round the finger 
by that offal Dunsey as nobody’s seen o’ late, and 
let him kill that fine hunting boss as was the 
talk o’ the country? And one while he was al¬ 
lays after Miss Nancy, and then it all went off 
again, like a smell o’ hot porridge, as I may say. 
That wasn’t my way when 7 went a-coorting.” 

“Ah, but mayhap Miss Nancy hung off like, 
and your lass didn’t,” said Ben. 

“I should say she didn’t,” said Mr. Macey, 
significantly. “Before I said ‘sniff,’ I took care 
to know as she’d say ‘snaff,’ and pretty quick 
too. I wasn’t a-going to open my mouth, like a 
dog at a fly, and snap it to again, wi’ nothing 
to swaller.” 

“Well, I think Miss Nancy’s a-coming round 
again,” said Ben, “for Master Godfrey doesn’t 


162 


Silas Marker 


look so down-hearted to-night. And I see he’s 
for taking her away to sit down, now they’re at 
the end o’ the dance: that looks like sweetheart- 
ing, that does.” 

The reason why Godfrey and Nancy had left 
the dance was not so tender as Ben imagined. 
In the close press of couples a slight accident 
had happened to Nancy’s dress, which, while it 
was short enough to show her neat ankle in 
front, was long enough behind to be caught un¬ 
der the stately stamp of the Squire’s foot, so 
as to rend certain stitches at the waist, and cause 
much sisterly agitation in Priscilla’s mind, as well 
as serious concern in Nancy’s. One’s thoughts 
may be much occupied with love-struggles, but 
hardly so as to be insensible to a disorder in the 
general framework of things. Nancy had no soon¬ 
er completed her duty in the figure they were 
dancing than she said to Godfrey, with a deep 
blush, that she must go and sit down till Priscilla 
could come to her; for the sisters had already ex¬ 
changed a short whisper and an open-eyed glance 
full of meaning. No reason less urgent than this 
could have prevailed on Nancy to give Godfrey 
this opportunity of sitting apart with her. As for 
Godfrey, he was feeling so happy and oblivious 
under the long charm of the country-dance with 
Nancy, that he got rather bold on the strength of 
her confusion, and was capable of leading her 
straight away, without leave asked, into the ad¬ 
joining small parlour, where the card-tables were 
set. 

“0 no, thank you,” said Nancy, coldly, as soon 


Silas Marner 


163 


as she perceived where he was going, “not in 
there. I’ll wait here till Priscilla’s ready to come 
to me. I’m sorry to bring you out of the dance 
and make myself troublesome.” 

“Why, you’ll be more comfortable here by your¬ 
self,” said the artful Godfrey; “I’ll leave you here 
till your sister can come.” He spoke in an indif¬ 
ferent tone. 

That was an agreeable proposition, and just 
what Nancy desired; why, then, was she a little 
hurt that Mr. Godfrey should make it? They en¬ 
tered, and she seated herself on a chair against 
one of the card-tables, as the stiffest and most un¬ 
approachable position she could choose. 

“Thank you, sir,” she said immediately. “I 
needn’t give you any more trouble. I’m sorry 
you’ve had such an unlucky partner.” 

“That’s very ill-natured of you,” said Godfrey, 
standing by her without any sign of intended de¬ 
parture, “to be sorry you’ve danced with me.” 

“0 no, sir, I don’t mean to say what’s ill-nature- 
ed at all,” said Nancy, looking distractingly prim 
and pretty. “When gentlemen have so many 
pleasures, one dance can matter but very little.” 

“You know that isn’t true. You know one dance 
with you matters more to me than all the other 
pleasures in the world.” 

It was a long, long while since Godfrey had said 
anything so direct as that, and Nancy was start¬ 
led. But her instinctive dignity and repugnance 
to any show of emotion made her sit perfectly 
still, and only throw a little more decision into her 
voice, as she said— 


164 


Silas Marner 


“No, indeed, Mr. Godfrey, that’s not known to 
me, and I have very good reasons for thinking dif¬ 
ferent. But if it’s true, I don’t wish to hear it.” 

“Would you never forgive me, then, Nancy—^ 
never think well of me, let what would happen— 
would you never think the present made amends 
for the past? Not if I turned a good fellow, and 
gave up everything you didn’t like?” 

Godfrey was half conscious that this sudden op¬ 
portunity of speaking to Nancy alone had driven 
him beside himself; but blind feeling had got the 
mastery of his tongue. Nancy really felt much 
agitated by the possibility Godfrey’s words sug¬ 
gested, but this very pressure of emotion that she 
was in danger of finding too strong for her roused 
all her power of self-command. 

“I should be glad to see a good change in any¬ 
body, Mr. Godfrey,” she answered, with the slight¬ 
est discernible difference of tone, “but it ’ud be 
better if no change was wanted.” 

“You’re very hard-hearted, Nancy,” said God¬ 
frey, pettishly. “You might encourage me to be a 
better fellow. I’m very miserable—but you’ve no 
feeling.” 

“I think those have the least feeling that act 
wrong to begin with,” said Nancy, sending out a 
flash in spite of herself. Godfrey was delighted 
with that little flash, and would have liked to go 
on and make her quarrel with him; Nancy was so 
exasperatingly quiet and firm. But she was not 
indifferent to him yet, though— 

The entrance of Priscilla, bustling forward and 
saying, “Dear heart alive, child, *let us look at 


Silas Marner 


165 


this gown/' cut off Godfrey's hopes of a quarrel. 

“I suppose I must go now," he said to Priscilla. 

“It's no matter to me whether you go or stay," 
said that frank lady, searching for something in 
her pocket, with a preoccupied brow. 

“Do you want me to go?" said Godfrey, looking 
at Nancy, who was now standing up by Priscilla’s 
order. 

“As you like," said Nancy, trying to recover all 
her former coldness, and looking down carefully 
at the hem of her gown. 

“Then I like to stay," said Godfrey, with a 
reckless determination to get as much of this joy 
as he could to-night, and think nothing of the 
morrow. 


CHAPTER XII 


While Godfrey Cass was taking draughts of for¬ 
getfulness from the sweet presence of Nancy, wil¬ 
lingly losing all sense of that hidden bond which 
at other moments galled and fretted him so as to 
mingle irritation with the very sunshine, God¬ 
frey's wife was walking with slow uncertain steps 
through the snow-covered Raveloe lanes, carrying 
her child in her arms. 

This journey on New Year's Eve was a pre¬ 
meditated act of vengeance which she had kept 
in her heart ever since Godfrey, in a fit of pas¬ 
sion, had told her he would sooner die than ac¬ 
knowledge her as his wife. There would be a 
great party at the Red House on New Year's Eve, 
she knew: her husband would be smiling and 
smiled upon, hiding her existence in the darkest 
corner of his heart. But she would mar his pleas¬ 
ure: she would go in her dingy rags, with her 
faded face, once as handsome as the best, with 
her little child that had its father's hair and eyes, 
and disclose herself to the Squire as his eldest 
son's wife. It is seldom that the miserable can 
help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted 
by those who are less miserable. Molly knew that 
the cause of her dingy rags was not her husband's 
neglect, but the demon Opium to whom she was 
enslaved, body and soul, except in the lingering 
mother's tenderness that refused to give him her 
hungry child. She knew this well; and yet, in the 
moments of wretched unbenumbed consciousness, 
the sense of her want and degradation trans- 
[ 166 ] 


Silas Marner 


167 


formed itself continually into bitterness towards 
Godfrey. He was well off; and if she had her 
rights she would be well off too. The belief that 
he repented his marriage, and suffered from it, 
only aggravated her vindictiveness. Just and 
self-reproving thoughts do not come to us too 
thickly, even in the purest air and with the best 
lessons of heaven and earth; how should those 
white-winged delicate messengers make their way 
to Molly’s poisoned chamber, inhabited by no 
higher memories than those of a barmaid’s para¬ 
dise of pink ribbons and gentlemen’s jokes? 

She had set out at an early hour, but had linger¬ 
ed on the road, inclined by her indolence to believe 
that if she waited under a warm shed the snow 
would cease to fall. She had waited longer than 
she knew, and now that she found herself belated 
in the snow-hidden ruggedness of the long lanes, 
even the animation of a vindictive purpose could 
not keep her spirit from failing. It was seven 
o’clock, and by this time she was not very far 
from Raveloe, but she was not familiar enough 
with those monotonous lanes to know how near 
she was to her journey’s end. She needed com¬ 
fort, and she knew but one comforter—the fa¬ 
miliar demon in her bosom; but she hesitated a 
moment, after drawing out the black remnant, 
before she raised it to her lips. In that moment 
the mother’s love pleaded for painful conscious¬ 
ness rather than oblivion—pleaded to be left in 
aching weariness, rather than to have the encirc¬ 
ling arms benumbed so that they could not feel 
the dear burden. In another moment Molly had 


168 


Silas Marker 


flung something away, but it was not the black 
remnant—it was an empty phial. And she walkea 
on again under the breaking cloud, from which 
there came now and then the light of a quickly- 
veiled star, for a freezing wind had sprung up 
since the snowing had ceased. But she walked 
always more and more drowsily, and clutched 
more and more automatically the sleeping child 
at her bosom. 

Slowly the demon was working his will, and 
cold and weariness were his helpers. Soon she 
felt nothing but a supreme immediate longing that 
curtained off all futurity—the longing to lie down 
and sleep. She had arrived at a spot where her 
footsteps were no longer checked by a hedgerow, 
and she had wandered vaguely, unable to distin¬ 
guish any objects, notwithstanding the wide 
whiteness around her, and the growing starlight. 
She sank down against a straggling furze bush, 
an easy pillow enough; and the bed of snow, too, 
was soft. She did not feel that the bed was cold, 
and did not heed whether the child would wake 
and cry for her. But her arms had not yet re¬ 
laxed their instinctive clutch; and the little one 
slumbered on as gently as if it had been rocked 
in a lace-trimmed cradle. 

But the complete torpor came at last: the fin¬ 
gers lost their tension, the arms unbent; then the 
little head fell away from the bosom, and the blue 
eyes opened wide on the cold starlight. At first 
there was a little peevish cry of “mammy,” and 
an effort to regain the pillowing arm and bosom; 
but mammy’s ear was deaf, and the pillow seemed 


Silas Marner 


169 


to be slipping away backward. Suddenly, as the 
child rolled downward on its mother’s knees, all 
wet with snow, its eyes were caught by a bright 
glancing light on the white ground, and, with the 
ready transition of infancy, it was immediately 
absorbed in watching the bright living thing run¬ 
ning towards it, yet never arriving. That bright 
living thing must be caught; and in an instant the 
child had slipped on all fours, and held out one 
little hand to catch the gleam. But the gleam 
would not be caught in that way, and now the 
head was held up to see where the cunning gleam 
came from. It came from a very bright place; 
and the little one, rising on its legs, toddled 
through the snow, the old grimy shawl in which 
it was wrapped trailing behind it, and the queer 
little bonnet dangling at its back—toddled on to 
the open door of Silas Marner’s cottage, and right 
up to the warm hearth, where there was a bright 
fire of logs and sticks, which had thoroughly 
warmed the old sack (Silas’s greatcoat) spread 
out on the bricks to dry. The little one, accus¬ 
tomed to be left to itself for long hours without 
notice from its mother, squatted down on the 
sack, and spread its tiny hands towards the blaze, 
in perfect contentment, gurgling and making 
many inarticulate communications to the cheerful 
fire, like a new-hatched gosling beginning to find 
itself comfortable. But presently the warmth had 
a lulling effect, and the little golden head sank 
down on the old sack, and the blue eyes were veiled 
by their delicate half-transparent lids. 

But where was Silas Marner while this strange 


170 


Silas Marker 


visitor had come to his hearth? He was in the 
cottage, but he did not see the child. During the 
last few weeks, since he had lost his money, he 
had contracted the habit of opening his door and 
looking out from time to time, as if he thought 
that his money rnight be somehow coming back 
to him, or that some trace, some news of it, might 
be mysteriously on the road, and be caught by the 
listening ear or the straining eye. It was chiefly 
at night, when he was not occupied in his loom, 
that he fell into this repetition of an act for which 
he could have assigned no definite purpose, and 
which can hardly be understood except by those 
who have undergone a bewildering separation 
from a supremely loved object. In the evening 
twilight, and later whenever the night was not 
dark, Silas looked out on that narrow prospect 
round the Stonepits, listening and gazing, not 
with hope, but with mere yearning and unrest. 

This morning he had been told by some of his 
neighbours that it was New Year’s Eve, and that 
he must sit up and hear the old year rung out 
and the new rung in, because that was good luck, 
and might bring his money back again. This was 
only a friendly Raveloe-way of jesting with the 
half-crazy oddities of a miser, but it had perhaps 
helped to throw Silas into a more than usually 
excited state. Since the on-coming of twilight 
he had opened his door again and again, though 
only to shut it immediately at seeing all distance 
veiled by the falling snow. But the last time he 
opened it the snow had ceased, and the clouds were 
parting here and there. He stood and listened, and 


Silas Marker 


171 


gazed for a long while—there was really some¬ 
thing on the road coming towards him then, but 
he caught no sign of it; and the stillness and the 
wide trackless snow seemed to narrow his soli¬ 
tude, and touched his yearning with the chill of 
despair. He went in again, and put his right hand 
on the latch of the door to close it—but he did 
not close it: he was arrested, as he had been al¬ 
ready since his loss, by the invisible wand of cat¬ 
alepsy, and stood like a graven image, with wide 
but sightless eyes, holding open his door, power¬ 
less to resist either the good or evil that might 
enter there. 

When Marner’s sensibility returned, he contin¬ 
ued the action which had been arrested, and closed 
his door, unaware of the chasm in his conscious¬ 
ness, unaware of any intermediate change, except 
that the light had grown dim, and that he was 
chilled and faint. He thought he had been too 
long standing at the door and looking out. Turn¬ 
ing towards the hearth, where the two logs had 
fallen apart, and sent forth only a red uncertain 
glimmer, he seated himself on his fireside chair, 
and was stooping to push his logs together, when, 
to his blurred vision, it seemed as if there were 
gold on the floor in front of the hearth. Gold !— 
his own gold—brought back to him as mysterious¬ 
ly as it had been taken away! He felt his heart 
begin to beat violently, and for a few moments he 
was unable to stretch out his hand and grasp 
the restored treasure. The heap of gold seemed 
to glow and get larger beneath his agitated gaze. 
He leaned forward at last, and stretched forth 


172 


Silas Marker 


his hand; but instead of the hard coin with the 
familiar resisting outline, his fingers encountered 
soft warm curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell 
on his knees and bent his head low to examine the 
marvel: it was a sleeping child—a round, fair 
thing, with soft yellow rings all over its head. 
Could this be his little sister come back to him 
in a dream—his little sister whom he had carried 
about in his arms for a year before she died, when 
he was a small boy without shoes or stockings? 
That was the first thought that darted across 
Silas’s blank wonderment. Was it a dream? He 
rose to his feet again, pushed his logs together, 
and, throwing on some dried leaves and sticks, 
raised a flame; but the flame did not disperse the 
vision—it only lit up more distinctly the little 
round form of the child, and its shabby clothing. 
It was very much like his little sister.' Silas sank 
into his chair powerless, under the double pres¬ 
ence of an inexplicable surprise and a hurrying 
influx of memories. How and when had the child 
come in without his knowledge? He had never 
been beyond the door. But along with that ques¬ 
tion, and almost thrusting it away, there was a 
vision of the old home and the old streets leading 
to Lantern Yard—and within that vision another, 
of the thoughts which had been present with him 
in those far-off scenes. The thoughts were strange 
to him now, like old friendships impossible to 
revive; and yet he had a dreamy feeling that this 
child was somehow a message come to him from 
that far-off life: it stirred fibres that had never 
been moved in Raveloe—old quiverings of tender- 


Silas Marner 


173 


ness—old impressions of awe at the presentiment 
of some Power presiding over his life; for his 
imagination had not yet extricated itself from the 
sense of mystery in the child’s sudden presence, 
and had formed no conjectures of ordinary natur¬ 
al means by which the event could have been 
brought about. 

But there was a cry on the hearth: the child 
had awaked, and Marner stooped to lift it on his 
knee. It clung round his neck, and burst louder 
and louder into that mingling of inarticulate cries 
with “mammy” by which little children express 
the bewilderment of waking. Silas pressed it to 
him, and almost unconsciously uttered sounds of 
hushing tenderness, while he bethought himself 
that some of his porridge, which had got cool by 
the dying fire, would do to feed the child with if 
it were only warmed up a little. 

He had plenty to do through the next hour. The 
porridge, sweetened with some dry brown sugar 
from an old store which he had refrained from 
using for himself, stopped the cries of the little, 
one, and made her lift her blue eyes with a wide 
quiet gaze at Silas, as he put the spoon into her 
mouth. Presently she slipped from his knee and 
began to toddle about, but with a pretty stagger 
that made Silas jump up and follow her lest she 
should fall against anything that would hurt her. 
But she only fell in a sitting posture on the 
ground, and began to pull at her boots, looking 
up at him w^th a crying face as if the boots hurt 
her. He took her on his knee again, but it was 
some time before it occurred to Silas’s dull bach- 


174 


Silas Marker 


elor mind that the wet boots were the grievance, 
pressing on her warm ankles. He got them off 
with difficulty, and baby was at once happily oc¬ 
cupied with the primary mystery of her own toes, 
inviting Silas, with much chuckling, to consider 
the mystery too. But the wet boots had at last 
suggested to Silas that the child had been walking 
on the snow, and this roused him from his entire 
oblivion of any ordinary means by which it could 
have entered or been brought into his house. 
Under the prompting of this new idea, and with¬ 
out waiting to form conjectures, he raised the 
child in his arms, and went to the door. As soon 
as he had opened it, there was the cry of “mam- 
my’" again, which Silas had not heard since the 
child’s first hungry waking. Bending forward, 
he could just discern the marks made by the little 
feet on the virgin snow, and he followed their 
track to the furze bushes. “Mammy!” the little 
one cried again and again, stretching itself for-, 
ward so as almost to escape from Silas’s arms,, 
.before he himself was aware that there was some¬ 
thing more than the bush before him—that there 
was a human body, with the head sunk low in the 
furze, and half-covered with the shaken snow. 


CHAPTER XIII 

It was after the early supper-time at the Red 
House, and the entertainment was in that stage 
when bashfulness itself had passed into easy jol¬ 
lity, when gentlemen, conscious of unusual ac¬ 
complishments, could at length be prevailed on to 
dance a hornpipe/ and when the Squire preferred 
talking loudly, scattering snuff, and patting his 
visitors’ backs, to sitting longer at the whist-table 
—a choice exasperating to uncle Kimble, who, 
being always volatile in sober business hours, be¬ 
came intense and bitter over cards and brandy, 
shuffled before his adversary’s deal with a glare 
of suspicion, and turned up a mean trump-card 
with an air of inexpressible disgust, as if in a 
world where such things could happen one might 
as well enter on a course of reckless profligacy. 
When the evening had advanced to this pitch of 
freedom and enjoyment, it was usual for the serv¬ 
ants, the heavy duties of supper being well over, 
to get their share of amusement by coming to look 
on at the dancing; so that the back regions of the 
house were left in solitude. 

There were two doors by which the White Par¬ 
lour was entered from the hall, and they were both 
standing open for the sake of air; but the lower 
one was crowded with the servants and villagers, 
and only the upper doorway was left free. Bob 
Cass was figuring in a hornpipe, and his father. 

^Hornpipe=Welsh musical instrument. The dance called 
the hornpipe, popular among sailors, was originally accom¬ 
panied by the hornpipes. 


176 


Silas Marker 


very proud of this lithe son, whom he repeatedly 
declared to be just like himself in his young days, 
in a tone that implied this to be the very highest 
stamp of juvenile merit, was the centre of a group 
who had placed themselves opposite the perform¬ 
er, not far from the upper door. Gk)dfrey was 
standing a little way oif, not to admire his 
brother’s dancing, but to keep sight of Nancy, 
who was seated in the group, near her father. 
He stood aloof, because he wished to avoid sug¬ 
gesting himself as a subject for the Squire’s fa¬ 
therly jokes in connection with matrimony and 
Miss Nancy Lammeter’s beauty, which were likely 
to become more and more explicit. But he had the 
prospect of dancing with her again when the horn¬ 
pipe was concluded, and in the meanwhile it was 
very pleasant to get long glances at her quite un¬ 
observed. 

But when Godfrey was lifting his eyes from 
one of those long glances, they encountered an ob¬ 
ject as startling to him at that moment as if it 
had been an apparition from the dead. It was an 
apparition from that hidden life which lies, like 
a dark by-street, behind the goodly ornamented 
fagade that meets the sunlight and the gaze of 
respectable admirers. It was his own child car¬ 
ried in Silas Marner’s arms. That was his in¬ 
stantaneous impression, unaccompanied by doubt, 
though he had not seen the child for months past; 
and when the hope was rising that he might pos¬ 
sibly be mistaken, Mr. Crackenthorp and Mr. 
Lammeter had already advanced to Silas, in as¬ 
tonishment at this strange advent. Godfrey 


Silas Marker 


177 


joined them immediately, unable to rest without 
hearing every word—trying to control himself, 
but conscious that if any one noticed him, they 
must see that he was white-lipped and trembling. 

But now all eyes at that end of the room were 
bent on Silas Marner; the Squire himself had 
risen, and asked angrily, “How’s this?—what’s 
this?— what do you do coming in here in this 
way?” 

“I’m come for the doctor—I want the doctor,” 
Silas had said, in the first moment, to Mr. Crack- 
enthorp. 

“Why, what’s the matter, Marner?” said the 
rector. “The doctor’s here; but say quietly what 
you want him for.” 

'Tt’s a woman,” said Silas, speaking low, and 
half-breathlessly, just as Godfrey came up. “She’s 
dead, I think—dead in the snow at the Stonepits 
—not far from my door.” 

Godfrey felt a great throb: there was one terror 
in his mind at that moment: it was, that the wo¬ 
man might not be dead. That was an evil terror 
—an ugly inmate to have found a nestling-place 
in Godfrey’s kindly disposition; but no disposi¬ 
tion is a security from evil wishes to a man whose 
happiness hangs on duplicity. 

“Hush, hush!” said Mr. Crackenthorp. “Go out 
into the hall there. I’ll fetch the doctor to you. 
Found a woman in the snow—and thinks she’s 
dead,” he added, speaking low, to the squire. “Bet¬ 
ter say as little about it as possible: it will shock 
the ladies. Just tell them a poor woman is ill 
from cold and hunger. Til go and fetch Kimble.” 


178 


Silas Marker 


By this time, however, the ladies had pressed 
forward, curious to know what could have brought 
the solitary linen-weaver there under such strange 
circumstances, and interested in the pretty child, 
who, half alarmed and half attracted by the 
brightness and the numerous company, now 
frowned and hid her face, now lifted up her head 
again and looked round placably, until a touch or 
a coaxing word brought back the frown, and made 
her bury her face with new determination. 

“What child is it?” said several ladies at once, 
and, among the rest, Nancy Lammeter, address¬ 
ing Godfrey. 

“I don’t know—some poor woman’s who has 
been found in the snow, I believe,” was the an¬ 
swer Godfrey wrung from himself with a terrible 
effort. (“After all, am I certain?” he hastened 
to add, in anticipation of his own conscience.) 

“Why, you’d better leave the child here, then. 
Master Marner,” said good-natured Mrs. Kimble, 
hesitating, however, to take those dingy clothes 
into contact with her own ornamented satin bod- 
dice. “I’ll tell one o’ the girls to fetch it.” 

“No—no—I can’t part with it, I can’t let it go,” 
said Silas, abruptly. “It’s come to me—I’ve a 
right to keep it.” 

The proposition to take the child from him had 
come to Silas quite unexpectedly, and his speech, 
uttered under a strong sudden impulse, was al¬ 
most like a revelation to himself: a minute before, 
he had no distinct intention about the child. 

“Did you ever hear the like?” said Mrs. Kimble, 
in mild surprise, to her neighbour. 


Silas Marner 


179 


"‘Now, ladies, I must trouble you to stand aside,” 
said Mr. Kimble, coming from the card-room, in 
some bitterness at the interruption, but drilled by 
the long habit of his profession into obedience to 
unpleasant calls, even when he was hardly sober. 

'‘It’s a nasty business turning out now, eh, Kim¬ 
ble?” said the Squire. “He might ha’ gone for 
young your fellow—the ’prentice, there—what’s 
his name?” 

“Might? ay—what’s the use of talking about 
might?” growled uncle Kimble, hastening out with 
Marner, and followed by Mr. Crackenthorp and 
Godfrey. “Get me a pair of thick boots, Godfrey, 
will you? And stay, let somebody run to Win- 
throp’s and fetch Dolly—she’s the best woman to 
get. Ben was here himself before supper; is he 
gone?” 

“Yes, sir, I met him,” said Marner; “but I 
couldn’t stop to tell him anything, only I said I 
was going for the doctor, and he said the doctor 
was at the Squire’s- And I made haste and ran, 
and there was nobody to be seen at the back o’ 
the house, and so I went in to where the company 
was.” 

The child, no longer distracted by the bright 
light and the smiling women’s faces, began to cry 
and call for “mammy,” though always clinging to 
Marner, who had apparently won her thorough 
confidence. Godfrey had come back with the 
boots, and felt the cry as if some fibre were drawn 
tight within him. 

“I’ll go,” he said, hastily, eager for some move- 


180 


Silas Marner 


merit; “I’ll go and fetch the woman—Mrs. Win- 
throp.” 

“0, pooh—send somebody else,” said uncle Kim¬ 
ble, hurrying away with Marner. 

“You’ll let me know if I can be of any use, Kim¬ 
ble,” said Mr. Crackenthorp. But the doctor was 
out of hearing. 

Godfrey, too, had disappeared: he was gone to 
snatch his hat and coat, having just reflection 
enough to remember that he must not look like a 
madman; but he rushed out of the house into the 
snow without heeding his thin shoes. 

In a few minutes he was on his rapid way to 
the Stonepits by the side of Dolly, who, though 
feeling that she was entirely in her place in en¬ 
countering cold and snow on an errand of mercy, 
was much concerned at a young gentleman’s get¬ 
ting his feet wet under a like impulse. 

“You’d a deal better go back, sir,” said Dolly, 
with respectful compassion. “You’ve no call to 
catch cold; and I’ll ask you if you’d be so good as 
tell my husband to come, on your way back— 
he’s at the Rainbow, I doubt—if you found him 
anyway sober enough to be o’ use. Or else, there’s 
Mrs. Snell ’ud happen send the boy up to fetch 
and carry, for there may be things wanted from 
the doctor’s.” 

“No, I’ll stay, now I’m once out—I’ll stay out¬ 
side here,” said Godfrey, when they came opposite 
Marner’s cottage. “You can come and tell me if 
I can do anything.” 

“Well, sir, you’re very good: you’ve a tender 
heart,” said Dolly, going to the door. 


Silas Marner 


181 


Godfrey was too painfully preoccupied to feel a 
twinge of self-reproach at this undeserved praise. 
He walked up and down, unconscious that he was 
plunging ankle-deep in snow, unconscious of ev¬ 
erything but trembling suspense about what was 
going on in the cottage, and the effect of each 
alternative on his future lot. No, not quite un¬ 
conscious of everything else. Deeper down, and 
half-smothered by passionate desire and dread, 
th^re was the sense that he ought not to be wait¬ 
ing on these alternatives; that he ought to accept 
the consequences of his deeds, own the miserable 
wife, and fulfil the claims of the helpless child. 
But he had not moral courage enough to contem¬ 
plate that active renunciation of Nancy as possi¬ 
ble for him: he had only conscience and heart 
enough to make him for ever uneasy under the 
weakness that forbade the renunication. And at 
this moment his mind leaped away from all re¬ 
straint toward the sudden prospect of deliverance 
from his long bondage. 

‘‘Is she dead ?” said the voice that predominated 
over every other within him. “If she is, I may 
marry Nancy; and then I shall be a good fellow 
in future, and have no secrets, and the child— 
shall be taken care of somehow.” But across that 
vision came the other possibility—“She may live, 
and then it’s all up with me.” 

Godfrey never knew how long it was before the 
door of the cottage opened and Mr. Kimble came 
out. He went forward to meet his uncle, prepared 
to suppress the agitation he must feel, whatever 
news he was to hear. 


182 


Silas Marner 


“I waited for you, as Fd come so far,” he said, 
speaking first. 

“Pooh, it was nonsense for you to come out: 
why didn’t you send one of the men? There’s 
nothing to be done. She’s dead—has been dead 
for hours, I should saj^” 

“What sort of woman is she?” said Godfrey, 
feeling the blood rush to his face. 

“A young woman, but emaciated, with long 
black hair. Some vagrant—quite in rags. She’s 
got a wedding-ring on, however. They must fetch 
her away to the workhouse to-morrow. Come, 
come along.” 

“I want to look at her,” said Godfrey. “I think 
I saw such a woman yesterday. Fll overtake you 
in a minute or two.” 

Mr. Kimble went on, and Godfrey turned back 
to the cottage. He cast only one glance at the 
dead face on the pillow, which Dolly had smoothed 
with decent care; but he remembered that last 
look at his unhappy hated wife so well, that at 
the end of sixteen years every line in the worn 
face was present to him when he told the full story 
of this night. 

He turned immediately towards the hearth, 
where Silas Marner sat lulling the child. She was 
perfectly quiet now, but not asleep—only soothed 
by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide- 
gazing calm which makes us older human beings, 
with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in 
the presence of a little child, such as we feel before 
some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky 
—before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flow- 


Silas Marker 


183 


ered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent 
pathway. The wide-open blue eyes looked up at 
Godfrey's without any uneasiness or sign of rec¬ 
ognition : the child could make no visible audible 
claim on its father; and the father felt a strange 
mixture of feelings, a conflict of regret and joy, 
that the pulse of that little heart had no response 
for the half-jealous yearning in his own, when 
the blue eyes turned away from him slowly, and 
fixed themselves on the weaver's queer face, which 
was bent low down to look at them, while the 
small hand began to pull Marner's withered cheek 
with loving disfiguration. 

“You'll take the child to the parish to-morrow ?" 
asked Godfrey, speaking as indifferently as he 
could. 

“Who says so?" said Marner, sharply. “Will 
they make me take her?" 

“Why, you wouldn't like to keep her, should 
you—an old bachelor like you?" 

“Till anybody shows they've a right to take her 
away from me," said Marner. “The mother's 
dead, and I reckon it's got no father: it's a lone 
thing—and I’m a lone thing. , My money's gone, 
I don't know where—and this is come from I don't 
know where. I know nothing—I’m partly 
mazed." 

“Poor little thing!" said Godfrey. “Let me give 
something towards finding it clothes." 

He had put his hand in his pocket and found 
half-a-guinea, and, thrusting it into Silas's hand, 
he hurried out of the cottage to overtake Mr. 
Kimble. 


184 


Silas Marker 


“Ah, I see it’s not the same woman I saw,” he 
said, as he came up. “It’s a pretty little child: 
the old fellow seems to want to keep it; that’s 
strange for a miser like him. But I gave him a 
trifle to help him out: the parish isn’t likely to 
quarrel with him for the right to keep the child.” 

“No; but I’ve seen the time when I might have 
quarrelled with him for it myself. It’s too late 
now, though. If the child ran into the fire, your 
aunt’s too fat to overtake it: she could only sit 
and grunt like an alarmed sow. But what a fool 
you are, Godfrey, to come out in your dancing 
shoes and stockings in this way—and you one of 
the beaux of the evening, and at your own house! 
What do you mean by such freaks, young fellow? 
Has Miss Nancy been cruel, and do you want to 
spite her by spoiling your pumps?” 

“0, everything has been disagreeable to-night. 
I was tired to death of jigging and gallanting, and 
that bother about the hornpipes. And I’d got to 
dance with the other Miss Gunn,” said Godfrey, 
glad of the subterfuge his uncle had suggested 
to him. 

The prevarication and white lies which a mind 
that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy 
under as a great artist under the false touches 
that no eye detects but his own, are worn as light¬ 
ly as mere trimmings when once the actions have 
become a lie. 

Godfrey reappeared in the White Parlour with 
dry feet, and, since the truth must be told, with 
a sense of relief and gladness that was too strong 
for painful thoughts to struggle with. For could 


Silas Marker 


185 


he not venture now, whenever opportunity offered, 
to say the tenderest things to Nancy Lammeter 
—to promise her and himself that he would al¬ 
ways be just what she would desire to see him? 
There was no danger that his dead wife would 
be recognised: those were not days of active in¬ 
quiry and wide report; and as for the registry of 
their marriage, that was a long way off, buried in 
unturned pages, away Jrom every one’s interest 
but his own. Dunsey might betray him if he 
c.ame back; but Dunsey might be won to silence. 

And when events turn out so much better for 
a man than he has had reason to dread, is it not 
a proof that his conduct has been less foolish and 
blameworthy than it might otherwise have ap¬ 
peared? When we are treated well, we naturally 
begin to think that we are not altogether unmeri- 
torious, and that it is only just we should treat 
ourselves well, and not mar our own good fortune. 
Where, after all, would be the use of his confess¬ 
ing the past to Nancy Lammeter, and throwing 
away his happiness?—nay, hers? for he felt some 
confidence that she loved him. As for the child, he 
would see that it was cared for: he would never 
forsake it; he would do everything but own it. 
Perhaps it would be just as happy in life without 
being owned by its father, seeing that nobody 
could tell how things would turn out, and that—is 
there any other reason wanted?—well, then, that 
the father would be much happier without own¬ 
ing the child. 


CHAPTER XIV 

There was a pauper’s burial that week in Rave- 
loe, and up Kench Yard at Batherley it was known 
that the dark-haired woman with the fair child, 
who had lately come to lodge there, was gone away 
again. That was all the express note taken that 
Molly had disappeared from the eyes of men. But 
the unwept death which, to the general lot, seemed 
as trivial as the summer-shed leaf, was charged 
with the force of destiny to certain human lives 
that we know of, shaping their joys and sorrows 
even to the end. 

Silas Marner’s determination to keep the 
'Tramp’s child” was matter of hardly less sur¬ 
prise and iterated talk in the village than the 
robbery of his money. That softening of feeling 
towards him which dated from his misfortune, 
that merging of suspicion and dislike in a rather 
contemptuous pity for him as lone and crazy, was 
now accompanied with a more active sympathy, 
especially amongst the women. Notable mothers, 
who knew what it was to keep children "whole 
and sweet”; lazy mothers, who knew what it was 
to be interrupted in folding their arms and 
scratching their elbows by the mischievous pro¬ 
pensities of children just firm on their legs, were 
equally interested in conjecturing how a lone man 
would manage with a two-year-old child on his 
hands, and were equally ready with their sugges¬ 
tions : the notable chiefly telling him what he had 
better do, and the lazy ones being emphatic in 


[ 186 ] 


Silas Marker 


187 


telling him what he would never be able to do. 

Among the notable mothers, Dolly Winthrop 
was the one whose neighbourly offices were the 
most acceptable to Marner, for they were rendered 
without any show of bustling instruction. Silas 
had shown her the half-guinea given to him by 
Godfrey, and had asked her what he should do 
about getting some clothes for the child. 

“Eh, Master Marner,” said Dolly, “there’s no 
call to buy no more nor a pair o’ shoes; for I’ve 
got the little petticoats as Aaron wore five years 
ago, and it’s ill spending the money on them baby- 
clothes, for the child ’ull grow like grass i’ May, 
bless it—that it will.” 

And the same day Dolly brought her bundle, 
and displayed to Marner, one by one, the tiny 
garments in their due order of succession, most 
of them patched and darned, but clean and neat 
as fresh-sprung herbs. This was the introduc¬ 
tion to a great ceremony with soap and water, 
from which baby came out in new beauty, and 
sat on Dolly’s knee, handling her toes and chuck¬ 
ling and patting her palms together with an air 
of having made several discoveries about herself, 
which she communicated by alternate sounds of 
“gug-gug-gug,” and “mammy.” The “mammy” 
was not a cry of need or uneasiness: Baby had 
been used to utter it without expecting either ten¬ 
der sound or touch to follow. 

“Anybody ’ud think the angils in heaven 
couldn’t be prettier,” said Dolly, rubbing the gold¬ 
en curls and kissing them. “And to think of its 
being covered wi’ them dirty rags—and the poor 


188 


Silas Marner 


mother—froze to death; but there’s Them as took 
care of it, and brought it to your door, Master 
Marner. The door was open, and it walked in 
over the snow, like as if it had been a little starved 
robin. Didn’t you say the door was open?” 

“Yes,” said Silas, meditatively. “Yes—the door 
was open. The money’s gone I don’t know where, 
and this is come from I don’t know where.” 

He had not mentioned to any one his uncon¬ 
sciousness of the child’s entrance, shrinking from 
questions which might lead to the fact he himself 
suspected—namely, that he had been in one of his 
trances. 

“Ah,” said Dolly, with soothing gravity, “it’s 
like the night and morning, and the sleeping and 
the waking, and the rain and the harvest—one 
goes and the other comes, and we know nothing 
how nor where. We may strive and scrat and 
fend,’ but it’s little we can do arter all—the big 
things come and go wi’ no striving o’ our’n—they 
do, that they do; and I think you’re in the right on 
it to keep the little un. Master Marner, seeing as 
it’s been sent to you, though there’s folks as thinks 
different. You’ll happen be a bit moithered" with 
it while it’s so little; but I’ll come, and welcome, 
and see to it for you: I’ve a bit o’ time to spare 
most days, for when one gets up betimes i’ the 
morning, the clock seems to stan’ still tow’rt ten, 
afore it’s time to go about the victual. So, as I 
say. I’ll come and see to the child for you, and 
welcome.” 


^We may strive and drudge and provide. 
^Moithered, moidered=perplexed, bothered. 



Silas Marker 


189 


“Thank you . . . kindly,” said Silas, hesitating 
a little. “Fll be glad if you’ll tell me things. 
But,” he added, uneasily, leaning forward to look 
at Baby with some jealousy, as she was resting 
her head backward against Dolly’s arm, and eye¬ 
ing him contentedly from a distance—“But I want 
to do things for it myself, else it may get fond o’ 
somebody else, and not fond o’ me. I’ve been used 
to fending for myself in the house—I can learn, 
I can learn.” 

“Eh, to be sure,” said Dolly, gently. “I’ve seen 
men as are wonderful handy wi’ children. The 
men are awk’ard and contrairy mostly, God help 
’em—but when the drink’s out of ’em, they aren’t 
unsensible, though they’re bad for leeching and 
bandaging—so fiery and unpatient. You see this 
goes first, next the skin,” proceeded Dolly, taking 
up the little shirt, and putting it on. 

“Yes,” said Marner, docilely, bringing his eyes 
very close, that they might be initiated in the mys¬ 
teries ; whereupon Baby seized his head with both 
her small arms, and put her lips against his face 
with purring noises. 

“See there,” said Dolly, with a woman’s tender 
tact, “she’s fondest o’ you. She wants to go o’ 
your lap. I’ll be bound. Go, then: take her. Mas¬ 
ter Marner; you can put the things on, and then 
you can say as you’ve done for her from the first 
of her coming to you.” 

Marner took her on his lap, trembling with an 
emotion mysterious to himself, at something un¬ 
known dawning on his life. Thought and feel¬ 
ing wex‘e so confused within him, that if he had 


190 


Silas Marner 


tried to give them utterance, he could only have 
said that the child was come instead of the 
gold—that the gold had turned into the child. 
He took the garments from Dolly, and put them 
on under her teaching; interrupted, of course, by 
Baby’s gymnastics. 

‘There, then! why, you take to it quite easy, 
Master Marner,” said Dolly; “but what shall you 
do when you’re forced to sit in your loom? For 
she’ll get busier and mischievouser every day— 
she will, bless her. It’s lucky as you’ve got that 
high hearth i’stead of a grate, for that keeps the 
fire more out of her reach; but if you’ve got any¬ 
thing as can be split or broke, or as is fit to cut 
her fingers off, she’ll be at it—and it is but right 
you should know.” 

Silas meditated a little while in some perplex¬ 
ity. “I’ll tie her to the leg o’ the loom,” he said 
at last—“tie her with a good long strip o’ some¬ 
thing.” 

“Well, mayhap that’ll do, as it’s a little gell, for 
they’re easier persuaded to sit i’ one place nor the 
lads. I know what the lads are;- for I’ve had four 
—four I’ve had, God knows—and if you was to 
take and tie ’em up, they’d make a fighting and a 
crying as if you was ringing the pigs. But I’ll 
bring you my little chair, and some bits o’ red rag 
and things for her to play wi’; an’ she’ll sit and 
chatter to ’em as if they was alive. Eh, if it 
wasn’t a sin to the lads to wish ’em made different, 
bless ’em, I should ha’ been glad for one of ’em 
to be a little gell; and to think as I could ha’ 
taught her to scour, and mend, and the knitting, 


Silas Marker 


191 


and everything. But I can teach ’em this little 
un, Master Marner, when she gets old enough.” 

'‘But she’ll by my little un,” said Marner, rather 
hastily. “She’ll be nobody else’s.” 

“No, tp be sure; you’ll have a right to her, if 
you’re a father to her, and bring her up accord¬ 
ing. But,” added Dolly, coming to a point which 
she had determined beforehand to touch upon, 
“you must bring her up like christened folks’s 
children, and take her to church, and let her learn 
her catechise, as my little Aaron can say off— the 
‘I believe,’ and everything, and ‘hurt nobody by 
word or deed,’—as well as if he was the clerk. 
That’s what you must do. Master Marner, if you’d 
do the right thing by the orphin child.” 

Marner’s pale face flushed suddenly under a 
new anxiety. His mind was too busy trying to 
give some definite bearing to Dolly’s words for 
him to think of answering her. 

“And it’s my belief,” she went on, “as the poor 
little creature has never been christened, and it’s 
nothing but right as the parson should be spoke 
to; and if you was noways unwilling. I’d talk to 
Mr. Macey about it this very day. For if the 
child ever went anyways wrong, and you hadn’t 
done your part by it. Master Marner—’nocula- 
tion, and everything to save it from harm—it 
’ud be a thorn i’ your bed for ever o’ this side the 
grave; and I can’t think as it ’ud be easy lying 
down for anybody when they’d got to another 
world, if they hadn’t done their part by the help¬ 
less children as come wi’out their own asking.” 

Dolly herself was disposed to be silent for some 


192 


Silas Marner 


time now, for she had spoken from the depths of 
her own simple belief, and was much concerned 
to know whether her words would produce the 
desired effect on Silas. He was puzzled and anx¬ 
ious, for Dolly’s word ‘"christened” conveyed no 
distinct meaning to him. He had only heard of 
baptism, and had only seen the baptism of grown¬ 
up men and women. 

“What is it as you mean by ‘christened’?” he 
said at last, timidly. “Won’t folks be good to her 
without it?” 

“Dear, dear! Master Marner,” said Dolly, with 
gentle distress and compassion. “Had you never 
no father nor mother as taught you to say your 
prayers, and as there’s good words and good 
things to keep us from harm?” 

“Yes,” said Silas, in a low voice; “ I know a deal 
about that—used to, used to. But your ways are 
different: my country was a good way off.” He 
paused a few moments, and then added, more de¬ 
cidedly, “But I want to do everything as can be 
done for the child. And whatever’s right for it i’ 
this country, and you think ’ull do it good. I’ll act 
according, if you’ll tell me.” 

“Well, then. Master Marner,” said Dolly, in¬ 
wardly rejoiced, “I’ll ask Mr. Macey to speak to 
the parson about it; and you must fix on a name 
for it, because it must have a name giv’ it when 
it’s christened.” 

“My mother’s name was Hephzibah,” said Si¬ 
las, “and my little sister was named after her.” 

“Eh, that’s a hard name,” said Dolly. “I partly 
think it isn’t a christened name.” 


Silas Marner 


193 


“It’s a Bible name,” said Silas, old ideas recur¬ 
ring. 

“Then I’ve no call to speak again’ it,” said Dol¬ 
ly, rather startled by Silas’s knowledge on this 
head; “but you see I’m no scholard, and I’m slow 
at catching the words. My husband says I’m al¬ 
lays like as if I was putting the haft for the 
handle—that’s what he says—for he’s very sharp, 
God help him. But it was awk’ard calling your 
little sister by such a hard name, when you’d got 
nothing big to say, like—wasn’t it. Master Mar¬ 
ner ?” 

“We called her Eppie,” said Silas. 

“Welly if it was noways wrong to shorten the 
name, it ’ud be a deal handier. And so I’ll go now. 
Master Marner, and I’ll speak about the christen¬ 
ing afore dark, and I wish you the best o’ luck, 
and it’s my belief as it’ll come to you, if you do 
what’s right by the orphin child;—and there’s 
the ’noculation to be seen to; and as to washing 
its bits o’ things, you need look to nobody but me, 
for I can do ’em wi’ one hand when I’ve got my 
suds about. Eh, the blessed angil! You’ll let me 
bring my Aaron one o’ these days, and he’ll show 
her his little cart as his father’s made for him, 
and the black-and-white pup as he’s got a-rear- 
ing.” 

Baby was christened, the rector deciding that 
a double baptism was the lesser risk to incur; and 
on this occasion Silas, making himself as clean 
and tidy as he could, appeared for the first time 
within the church, and shared in the observances 
held sacred by his neighbours. He was quite un- 


194 


Silas Marner 


able, by means of anything he heard or saw, to 
identify the Raveloe religion with his old faith; 
if he could at any time in his previous life have 
done so, it must have been by the aid of a strong 
feeling ready to vibrate with sympathy, rather 
than by a comparison of phrases and ideas; and 
now for long years that feeling had been dormant. 
He had no distinct idea about the baptism and 
the church-going, except that Dolly had said it 
was for the good of the child; and in this way, 
as the weeks grew to months, the child created 
fresh and fresh links between his life and the 
lives from which he had hitherto shrunk contin¬ 
ually into narrower isolation,. Unlike the gold 
which needed nothing, and^must be worshipped 
in close-locked solitude—which was hidden away 
from the daylight, was deaf to the song of birds, 
and started to no human tones—Eppie was a crea¬ 
ture of endless claims and ever-growing desires, 
seeking and loving sunshine, and living sounds, 
and living movements; making trial of everything, 
with trust in new joy, and stirring the human 
kindness in all eyes that looked on her. The gold 
had kept his thoughts in an ever-repeated circle, 
leading to nothing beyond itself; but Eppie was 
an object compacted of changes and hopes that 
forced his thoughts onward, and carried them far 
away from their old eager pacing towards the 
same blank limit—carried them away to the new 
things that would come with the coming years, 
when Eppie would have learned to understand 
how her father Silas cared for her; and made him 
look for images of that time in the ties and chari- 


Silas Marker 


195 


ties that bound together the families of his neigh¬ 
bours. The gold had asked that^he should sit weav¬ 
ing longer and longer, deafened and blinded more 
and more to all things except the monotony of his 
loom and the repetition of his web; but Eppie 
called him away from his weaving, and made him 
think all its pauses a holiday, reawakening his 
senses with her fresh life, even to the old winter- 
flies that came crawling forth in the early spring 
sunshine, and warming him into joy because she 
had joy. 

And when the sunshine grew strong and last¬ 
ing, so that the buttercups were thick in the mead¬ 
ows, Silas might be seen in the sunny mid-day, or 
in the late afternoon when the shadows were 
lengthening under the hedgerows, strolling out 
with uncovered head to carry Eppie beyond the 
Stonepits to where the flowers grew, till they 
reached some favourite bank where he could sit 
down, while Eppie toddled to pluck the flowers, 
and make remarks to the winged things that mur¬ 
mured happily above the bright petals, calling 
“Dad-dad’s” attention continually by bringing him 
the flowers. Then she would turn her ear to 
some sudden bird-note, and Silas learned to please 
her by making signs of hushed stillness, that they 
might listen for the note to come again: so that 
when it came, she set up her small back and 
laughed with gurgling triumph. Sitting on the 
banks in this way, Silas began to look for the 
once familiar herbs again; and as the leaves, with 
their unchanged outline and markings, lay on his 
palm, there was a sense of crowding remem- 


196 


Silas Marker 


brances from which he turned away timidly, tak¬ 
ing refuge in Eppie’s little world, that lay lightly 
on his enfeebled spirit. 

As the child’s mind was growing into knowl¬ 
edge, his mind was growing into memory: as her 
life unfolded, his soul, long stupefied in a cold 
narrow prison, was unfolding too, and trembling 
gradually into full consciousness. 

It was an influence which must gather force 
with every new year: the tones that stirred Silas’s 
heart grew articulate, and called for more distinct 
answers; shapes and sounds grew clearer for Ep- 
pie’s eyes and ears, and there was more that “Dad- 
dad” was imperatively required to notice and ac¬ 
count for. Also, by the time Eppie was three 
years old, she developed a fine capacity for mis¬ 
chief, and for devising ingenious ways of being 
troublesome, which found much exercise, not only 
for Silas’s patience, but for his watchfulness and 
penetration. Sorely was poor Silas puzzled on 
such occasions by the incompatible demands of 
love. Dolly Winthrop told him that punishment 
was good for Eppie, and that, as for rearing a 
child without making it tingle a little in soft and 
safe places now and then, it was not to be done. 

“To be sure, there’s another thing you might 
do. Master Marner,” added Dolly, meditatively: 
“you might shut her up once i’ the coal-hole. That 
was what I did wi’ Aaron; for I was that silly wi’ 
the youngest lad, as I could never bear to smack 
him. Not as I could find i’ my heart to let him 
stay i’ the coal-hole more nor a minute, but it was 
enough to colly him all over, so as he must be new 


Silas Marker 


197 


washed and dressed, and it was as good as a rod 
to him—that was. But I put it upo’ your consci¬ 
ence, Master Marner, as there’s one of ’em you 
must choose—ayther smacking or the coal-hole— 
else she’ll get so masterful, there’ll be no holding 
her.” 

Silas was impressed with the melancholy truth 
of this last remark; but his force of mind failed 
before the only two penal methods open to him, 
not only because it was painful to him to hurt 
Eppie, but because he trembled at a moment’s con¬ 
tention with her, lest she should love him the less 
for it. Let even an affectionate Goliath get him¬ 
self tied to a small tender thing, dreading to hurt 
it by pulling, and dreading still more to snap the 
cord, and which of the two, pray, will be master? 
It was clear that Eppie, with her short toddling 
steps, must lead father Silas a pretty dance on 
any fine morning when circumstances favoured 
mischief. 

For example. He had wisely chosen a broad 
strip of linen as a means of fastening her to his 
loom when he was busy: it made a broad belt 
round her waist, and was long enough to allow of 
her reaching the truckle-bed and sitting down on 
it, but not long enough for her to attempt any 
dangerous climbing. One bright summer’s morn¬ 
ing Silas had been more engrossed than usual in 
‘‘setting up” a new piece of work, an occasion on 
which his scissors were in requisition. These 
scissors, owing to an especial warning of Dolly’s, 
had been kept carefully out of Eppie’s reach; but 
the click of them had had a peculiar attraction for 


198 


Silas Marner 


her ear, and watching the results of that click, 
she had derived the philosophic lesson that the 
same cause would produce the same effect. Silas 
had seated himself in his loom, and the noise of 
weaving had begun; but he had left his scissors 
on a ledge which Eppie’s arm was long enough to 
reach; and now, like a small mouse, watching her 
opportunity, she stole quietly from her corner, se¬ 
cured the scissors, and toddled to the bed again, 
setting up her back as a mode of concealing the 
fact. She had a distinct intention as to the use 
of the scissors; and having cut the linen strip in 
a jagged but effectual manner, in two moments 
she had run out at the open door where the sun¬ 
shine was inviting her, while poor Silas believed 
her to be a better child than usual. It was not un¬ 
til he happened to need his scissors that the terri¬ 
ble fact burst upon him: Eppie had run out by 
herself—had perhaps fallen into the Stonepit. 
Silas, shaken by the worst fear that could have 
befallen him, rushed out, calling “Eppie!” and 
ran eagerly about the unenclosed space, exploring 
the dry cavities into which she might have fallen, 
and then gazing with questioning dread at the 
smooth red surface of the water. The cold drops 
stood on his brow. How long had she been out? 
There was one hope—that she had crept through 
the stile and got into the fields, where he habitu¬ 
ally took her to stroll. But the grass was high 
in the meadow, and there was no descrying her, if 
she were there, except by a close search that 
would be a trespass on Mr. Osgood’s crop. Still, 
that misdemeanor must be committed; and poor 


Silas Marner 


199 


Silas, after peering all round the hedgerows, trav¬ 
ersed the grass, beginning with perturbed vision 
to see Eppie behind every group of red sorrel, and 
to see her moving always farther off as he ap¬ 
proached. The meadow was searched in vain; 
and he got over the stile into the next field, look¬ 
ing with dying hope towards a small pond which 
was now reduced to its summer shallowness, so as 
to leave a wide margin of good adhesive mud. 
Here, however, sat Eppie, discoursing cheerfully 
to her own small boot, which she was using as a 
bucket to convey the water into a deep hoof-mark, 
while her little naked foot was planted comfort¬ 
ably on a cushion of olive-green mud. A red¬ 
headed calf was observing her with alarmed doubt 
through the opposite hedge. 

Here was clearly a case of aberration in a chris¬ 
tened child which demanded severe treatment; 
but Silas, overcome with convulsive joy at find¬ 
ing his treasure again, could do nothing but 
snatch her up, and cover her with half-sobbing 
kisses. It was not until he had carried her home, 
and had begun to think of the necessary washing, 
that he recollected the need that he should punish 
Eppie, and “make her remember.'' The idea that 
she might run away again and come to harm, gave 
him unusual resolution, and for the first time 
he determined to try the coal-hole—a small closet 
near the hearth. 

“Naughty, naughty Eppie," he suddenly began, 
holding her on his knee, and pointing to her mud¬ 
dy feet and clothes—“naughty to cut with the 
scissors and run away. Eppie must go into the 


200 


Silas Marner 


coal-hole for being naughty. Daddy must put her 
in the coal-hole.” 

He half-expected that this would be sTiock 
enough, and that Eppie would begin to cry. But 
instead of that, she began to shake herself on his 
knee, as if the proposition opened a pleasing nov¬ 
elty. Seeing that he must proceed to extremities, 
he put her into the coal-hole, and held the door 
closed, with a trembling sense that he was using 
a strong measure. For a moment there was sil¬ 
ence, but then came a little cry, “Opy, opy!” and 
Silas let her out again, saying, “Now Eppie 'ull 
never be naughty again, else she must go into the 
coal-hole—a black naughty place.” 

The weaving must stand still a long while this 
morning, for now Eppie must be washed, and 
have clean clothes on; but it was to be hoped that 
this punishment would have a lasting effect, and 
save time in future—though, perhaps, it would 
have been better if Eppie had cried more. 

In half an hour she was clean again, and Silas 
having turned his back to see what he could do 
with the linen band, threw it down again, with the 
reflection that Eppie would be good without fas¬ 
tening for the rest of the morning. He turned 
round again, and was going to place her in her 
little chair near the loom, when she peeped out 
at him with black face and hands again, and said, 
“Eppie in de toal-hole!” 

This total failure of the coal-hole discipline 
shook Silas’s belief in the efficacy of punishment. 
“She’d take it all for fun,” he observed to Dolly, 
“if I didn’t hurt her, and that I can’t do, Mrs 


Silas Marker 


201 


Winthrop. If she makes me a bit o' trouble, I can 
bear it. And she’s got no tricks but what she’ll 
grow out of.” 

“Well, that’s partly true, Master Marner,’^ said 
Dolly, sympathetically; “and if you can’t bring 
your mind to frighten her off touching things, you 
must do what you can to keep ’em out of her way. 
That’s what I do wi’ the pups as the lads are allays 
a-rearing. They will worry and gnaw—worry 
and gnaw they will, if it was one’s Sunday’s cap 
as hung anywhere so they could drag it. They 
know no difference, God help ’em: it’s the push¬ 
ing o’ the teeth as sets ’em on, that’s what it is.” 

So Eppie was reared without punishment, the 
burden of her misdeeds being borne vicariously 
by father Silas. The stone hut was made a soft 
nest for her, lined with downy patience: and also 
in the world that lay beyond the stone hut she 
knew nothing of frowns and denials. 

Notwithstanding the difficulty of carrying her 
and his yarn or linen at the same time, Silas took 
her with him in most of his journeys to the farm¬ 
houses, unwilling to leave her behind at Dolly 
Winthrop’s, who was always ready to take care of 
her; and little curly-headed Eppie, the weaver’s 
child, became an object of interest at several out¬ 
lying homesteads, as well as in the village. Hith¬ 
erto he had been treated very much as if he had 
been a useful gnome or brownie—a queer and un¬ 
accountable creature, who must necessarily be 
looked at with wondering curiosity and repulsion, 
and with whom one would be glad to make all 
greetings and bargains as brief as possible, but 


202 


Silas Marker 


who must be dealt with in a propitiatory way, and 
occasionally have a present of pork or garden stuff 
to carry home with him, seeing that without him 
there was no getting the yarn woven. But now 
Silas met with open smiling faces and cheerful 
questioning, as a person 'whose satisfaction and 
difficulties could be understood. Everywhere he 
must sit a little and talk about the child, and 
words of interest were always ready for him: 
'‘Ah, Master Marner, you’ll be lucky if she takes 
the measles soon and easy!”—or, "Why, there 
isn’t many lone men ’ud ha’ been wishing to take 
up with a little un like that: but I reckon the 
weaving makes you handier than men as do out¬ 
door work—you’re partly as handy as a woman, 
for weaving comes next to spinning.” Elderly 
masters and mistresses, seated observantly in 
large kitchen arm-chairs, shook their heads over 
the difficulties attendant on rearing children, felt 
Eppie’s round arms and legs, and pronounced 
them remarkably firm, and told Silas that, if she 
turned out well (which, however, there was no 
^•elling), it would be a fine thing for him to have 
a steady lass to do for him when he got helpless. 
Servant maidens were fond of carrying her out 
to look at the hens and chickens, or to see if any 
cherries could be shaken down in the orchard; 
and the small boys and girls approached her slow¬ 
ly, with cautious movement and steady gaze, like 
little dogs face to face with one of their own kind, 
till attraction had reached the point at which the 
soft lips were put out for a kiss. No child was 
afraid of approaching Silas when Eppie was near 


Silas Marner 


203 


him: there was no repulsion around him now, 
either for young or old; for the little child had 
come to link him once more with the whole world. 
There was love between him and the child that 
blent them into one, and there was love between 
the child and the world—from men and women 
with parental looks and tones, to the red lady¬ 
birds and the round pebbles. 

Silas began now to think of Raveloe life entire¬ 
ly in relation to Eppie: she must have everything 
that was good in Raveloe; and he listened docilely, 
that he might come to understand better what this 
life was, from which, for fifteen years, he had 
stood aloof as from a strange thing, wherewith he 
could have no communion: as some man who has 
a precious plant to which he would give a nurtur¬ 
ing home in a new soil, thinks of the rain, and the 
sunshine, and all influences, in relation to his 
nursling, and asks industriously for all knowledge 
that will help him to satisfy the wants of the 
searching roots, or to guard leaf and bud from in¬ 
vading harm. The disposition to hoard had been 
utterly crushed at the very first by the loss of his 
long-stored gold: the coins he earned afterwards 
seemed as irrelevant as stones brought to com¬ 
plete a house suddenly buried by an earthquake; 
the sense of bereavement was too heavy upon him 
for the old thrill of satisfaction to arise again at 
the touch of the newly earned coin. And now 
something had come to replace his hoard which 
gave a growing purpose to the earnings, drawing 
his hope and joy continually onward beyond the 
money. 


204 


Silas Marner 


In old days there were angels who came and 
took men by the hand and led them away from the 
city of destruction. We see no white-winged an¬ 
gels now. But yet men are led away from threat¬ 
ening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which 
leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright 
land, so that they look no more backward; and the 
hand may be a little child’s. 



CHAPTER XV 


There was one person, as you will believe, who 
watched with keener though more hidden interest 
than any other, the prosperous growth of Eppie 
under the weaver’s care. He dared not do any¬ 
thing that would imply a stronger interest in a 
poor man’s adopted child than could be expected 
from the kindliness of the young Squire, when a 
chance meeting suggested a little present to a 
simple old fellow whom others noticed with good¬ 
will ; but he told himself that the time would come 
when he might do something towards furthering 
the welfare of his daughter without incurring sus¬ 
picion. Was he very uneasy in the meantime at 
his inability to give his daughter her birthright? 
I cannot say that he was. The child was being 
taken care of, and would very likely be happy, as 
people in humble stations often were—happier, 
perhaps, than those brought up in luxury. 

That famous ring that pricked its owner when 
he forgot duty and followed desire—I wonder if it 
pricked very hard when he set out on the chase, 
or whether it pricked but lightly then, and only 
pierced to the quick when the chase had long 
been ended, and hope, folding her wings, looked 
backward and became regret? 

Godfrey Cass’s cheek and eye were brighter 
than ever now. He was so undivided in his aims, 
that he seemed like a man of firmness. No Dun- 
sey had come back: people had made up their 
minds that he was gone for a soldier, or gone ‘‘out 
of the country,” and no one cared to be specific in 
[ 205 ] 


206 


Silas Marker 


their inquiries on a subject delicate to a respecta¬ 
ble family. Godfrey had ceased to see the shadow 
of Dunsey across his path; and the path now lay 
straight forward to the accomplishment of his 
best, longest-cherished wishes. Everybody said 
Mr. Godfrey had taken the right turn; and it was 
pretty clear what would be the end of things, for 
there were not many days in the week that he was 
not seen riding to the Warrens. Godfrey himself, 
when he was asked jocosely if the day had been 
fixed, smiled with the pleasant consciousness of a 
lover who could say “yes,” if he liked. 

He felt a reformed man, delivered from tempta¬ 
tion; and the vision of his future life seemed to 
him as a promised land for which he had no cause 
to fight. He saw himself with all his happiness 
centered on his own hearth, while Nancy would 
smile on him as he played with the children. 

And that other child, not on the hearth—he 
would not forget it; he would see that it was well 
provided for. That was a father’s duty. 


PART II 


CHAPTER XVI 

It was a bright autumn Sunday, sixteen years aft¬ 
er Silas Marner had found his new treasure on 
the hearth. The bells on the old Raveloe church 
were ringing the cheerful peal that told that the 
morning service was ended; and out of the arched 
door-way in the tower came slowly, retarded by 
friendly greetings and questions, the richer par¬ 
ishioners who had chosen this bright Sunday 
morning as eligible for church-going. It was the 
rural fashion of that time for the more important 
members of the congregation to depart first, while 
their humbler neighbours waited and looked on, 
stroking their bent heads or dropping their curt¬ 
sies to any large ratepayer who turned to notice 
them. 

Foremost among these advancing groups of 
well-clad people, there are some whom we shall 
recognize, in spite of Time, who has laid his hand 
on them all. The tall blond man of forty is not 
much changed in features from the Godfrey Cass 
of six-and-twenty: he is only fuller in flesh, and 
has only lost the indefinable look of youth—a loss 
which is marked even when the eye is undulled 
and the wrinkles are not yet come. Perhaps the 
pretty woman, not much younger than he, who is 
leaning on his arm, is more changed^than her hus¬ 
band : the lovely bloom that used to be always on 
her cheek now comes but fitfully, with the fresh 
morning air or with some strong surprise; yet to 
[ 207 ] 



208 


Silas Marker 


all who love human faces best for what they tell of 
human experience, Nancy’s beauty has a heighten¬ 
ed interest. Often the soul is ripened into fuller 
goodness while age has spread an ugly film, so 
that mere glances can never divine the precious¬ 
ness of the fruit. But the years have not been so 
cruel to Nancy. The firm yet placid mouth, the 
clear veracious glance of the brown eyes, speak 
now of a nature that has been tested and has kept 
its highest qualities; and even the costume, with 
its dainty neatness and purity, has more signi¬ 
ficance now the coquetries of youth can have noth¬ 
ing to do with it. 

Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass (any higher title 
has died away from Raveloe lips since the old 
Squire was gathered to his fathers and his inheri¬ 
tance was divided) have turned round to look 
for the tall aged man and the plainly dressed wo¬ 
man who are a little behind—Nancy having ob¬ 
served that they must wait for "‘father and Pris¬ 
cilla”—and now they all turn into a narrower 
path leading across the churchyard to a small gate 
opposite the Red House. We will not follow them 
now; for may there not be some others in this 
departing congregation whom we should like to 
see again—some of those who are not likely to be 
handsomely clad, and whom we may not recognise 
so easily as the master and mistress of the Red 
House? 

But it is impossible to mistake Silas Marner. 
His large brown eyes seem to have gathered a 
longer vision, as is the way with eyes that have 
been short-sighted in early life, and they have a 


Silas Marner 


209 


less vague, a more answering look; but in every¬ 
thing else one sees signs of a frame much en¬ 
feebled by the lapse of the sixteen years. The 
weaver’s bent shoulders and white hair give him 
almost the look of advanced age, though he is not 
more than five-and-fifty; but there is the freshest 
blossom of youth close by his side—a blond dim¬ 
pled girl of eighteen, who has vainly tried to chas¬ 
tise her curly auburn hair into smoothness under 
her brown bonnet: the hair ripples as obstinately 
as a brooklet under the March breeze, and the 
little ringlets burst away from the restraining 
comb behind and show themselves below the bon¬ 
net-crown. Eppie cannot help being rather vexed 
about her hair, for there is no other girl in Rave- 
loe who has hair at all like it, and she thinks 
hair ought to be smooth. She does not like to be 
blameworthy even in small things: you see how 
neatly her prayer-book is folded in her spotted 
handkerchief. 

That good-looking young fellow, in a new fus¬ 
tian suit, who walks behind her, is not quite sure 
upon the question of hair in the abstract, when 
Eppie puts it to him, and thinks that perhaps 
straight hair is the best in general, but he doesn’t 
want Eppie’s hair to be different. She surely di¬ 
vines that there is some one behind her who is 
thinking about her very particularly, and muster¬ 
ing courage to come to her side as soon as they 
are out in the lane, else why should she look rather 
shy, and take care not to turn her head away from 
her father Silas, to whom she keeps murmuring 
little sentences as to who was at church, and who 


210 


Silas Marner 


was not at church, and how pretty the red moun- 
tain-ash is over the Rectory wall! 

‘‘I wish we had a little garden, father, with dou¬ 
ble daisies in it, like Mrs. Winthrop’s,’' said Eppie, 
when they were out in the lane; “only they say it 
’ud take a deal of digging and bringing fresh soil 
—and you couldn’t do that, could you, father? 
Anyhow, I shouldn’t like you to do it, for it ’ud be 
too hard work for you.” 

“Yes, I could do it, child, if you want a bit o’ 
garden: these long evenings, I could work at tak¬ 
ing in a little bit o’ the waste, just enough for a 
root or two o’ flowers for you; and again, i’ the 
morning, I could have a turn wi’ the spade before 
I sat down to the loom. Why didn’t you tell me 
before as you wanted a bit o’ garden?” 

“/ can dig it for you. Master Marner,” said the 
young man in fustian, who was now by Eppie’s 
side, entering into the conversation without the 
trouble of formalities. “It’ll be play to me after 
I’ve done my day’s work, or any odd bits o’ time 
when the work’s slack. And I’ll bring you some 
soil from Mr. Cass’s garden—he’ll let me, and 
willing.” 

“Eh, Aaron, my lad, are you there?” said Silas; 
“I wasn’t aware of you; for when Eppie’s talk¬ 
ing o’ things, I see nothing but what she’s a-say- 
ing. Well, if you could help me with the digging, 
we might get her a bit o’ garden all the sooner.” 

“Then, if you think well and good,” said Aaron, 
“I’ll come to the Stonepits this afternoon, and 
we’ll settle what land’s to be taken in, and I’ll get 
















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gf® 


>>v?gg 








\ 


A COTTAGE AT RAVELOE 























































212 


Silas Marner 


up an hour earlier i’ the morning, and begin on 
it/’ 

*'But not if you don’t promise me not to work 
at the hard digging, father,” said Eppie. 'Tor I 
shouldn’t ha’ said anything about it,” she added, 
half-bashfully, half-roguishly, “only Mrs. Win- 
throp said as Aaron ’ud be so good, and——” 

“And you might ha' known it without her tell¬ 
ing you,” said Aaron. “And Master Marner 
knows too, I hope, as I’m able and willing to do a 
turn o’ work for him, and he won’t do me the un¬ 
kindness to anyways take it out o’ my hands.” 

“There, now, father, you won’t work in it till 
it’s all easy,” said Eppie, “and you and me can 
mark out the beds, and make holes and plant the 
roots. It’ll be a deal livelier at the Stonepits 
when we’ve got some flowers, for I always think 
the flowers can see us, and know what we’re talk¬ 
ing about. And I’ll have a bit of rosemary, and 
bergamot, and thyme, because they’re so sweet¬ 
smelling; but there’s no lavender only in the gen¬ 
tlefolks’ gardens, I think.” 

“That’s no reason why you shouldn’t have 
some,” said Aaron, “for I can bring you slips of 
anything; I’m forced to cut no end of ’em when 
I’m gardening, and I throw ’em away mostly. 
There’s a big bed o’ lavender at the Red House; 
the missus is very fond of it.” 

“Well,” said Silas, gravely, “so as you don’t 
make free for us, or ask for anything as is worth 
much at the Red House: for Mr. Cass’s been so 
good to us, and built us up the new end o’ the cot¬ 
tage, and given us beds and things, as I couldn’t 



Silas Marner 


213 


abide to be imposin’ for garden-stuff or anything 
else.” 

“No, po, there’s no imposin’,” said Aaron; 
“there’s never a garden in all the parish but what 
there’s endless waste in it for want o’ somebody 
as could use everything up. It’s what I think to 
myself sometimes, as there need nobody run short 
of victuals if the land was made the most on, and 
there was never a morsel but what could find its 
way to a mouth. It sets one thinking o’ that— 
gardening does. But I must go back now, else 
mother ’ull be in trouble as I aren’t there.” 

“Bring her with you this afternoon, Aaron,” 
said Eppie; “I shouldn’t like to fix about the gar¬ 
den, and her not know everything from the first 
—should you, father?” 

“Ay, bring her if you can, Aaron,” said Silas; 
“she’s sure to have a word to say as ’ll help us to 
set things on their right end.” 

Aaron turned back up the village, while Silas 
and Eppie went on up the lonely sheltered lane. 

“0 daddy!” she began, when they were in 
privacy, clasping and squeezing Silas’s arm, and 
skipping round to give him an energetic kiss. “My 
little old daddy I I’m so glad. I don’t think I shall 
want anything else when we’ve got a little gar¬ 
den ; and I knew Aaron would dig it for us,” she 
went on with roguish triumph—“I knew that very 
well.” 

“You’re a deep little puss, you are,” said Silas, 
with the mild passive happiness of love-crowned 
age in his face; “but you’ll make yourself.fine and 
beholden to Aaron.” 


214 


Silas Marner 


“0 no, I shan’t,” said Eppie, laughing and frisk¬ 
ing; “he likes it.” 

“Come, come, let me carry your prayer-book, 
else you’ll be dropping it, jumping i’ that way.” 

Eppie was now aware that-her behaviour was 
under observation, but it was only the observation 
of a friendly donkey, browsing with a log fasten¬ 
ed to his foot—a meek donkey, not scornfully crit¬ 
ical of human trivialities, but thankful to share in_ 
them, if possible, by getting his nose scratched; 
and Eppie did not fail to gratify him with her 
usual notice, though it was attended with the in¬ 
convenience of his following them, painfully, up 
to the very door of their home. 

But the sound of a sharp bark inside, as Eppie 
put the key in the door, modified the donkey’s 
views, and he limped away again without bidding. 
The sharp bark was the sign of an excited wel¬ 
come that was awaiting them from a knowing 
brown terrier, who, after dancing at their legs 
in a hysterical manner, rushed with a worrying 
noise at a tortoise-shell kitten under the loom, and 
then rushed back with a sharp bark again, as 
much as to say, “I have done my duty by this fee¬ 
ble creature, you perceive”; while the lady-mother 
of the kitten sat sunning her white bosom in the 
window^ and looked round with a sleepy air of 
expecting caresses, though she was not going to 
take any trouble for them. 

The presence of this happy animal life was not 
the only change which had come over the interior 
of the stone cottage. There was no bed now in the 
living-room, and the small space was well filled 


Silas Marker 


215 


with decent furniture, all bright and clean enough 
to satisfy Dolly Winthrop’s eye. The oaken table 
and three-cornered oaken chair were hardly what 
was likely to be seen in so poor a cottage: they had 
come, with the beds and other things, from the 
Red House; for Mr. Godfrey Cass, as everyone 
said in the village, did very kindly by the weaver; 
and it was nothing but right a man should be look¬ 
ed on and helped by those who could afford it, 
when he had brought up an orphan child, and been 
father and mother to her—and had lost his money 
too, so as he had nothing but what he worked for 
week by week, and when the weaving was going 
down too—for there was less and less flax spun— 
and Master Marner was none so young. Nobody 
was jealous of the weaver, for he was regarded as 
an exceptional person, whose claims on neighbour¬ 
ly help were not to be matched in Raveloe. Any 
superstitition that remained concerning him had 
taken an entirely new colour; and Mr. Macey, 
now a very feeble old man of fourscore and six, 
never seen except in his chimney-corner or sitting 
in the sunshine at his door-sill, was of opinion 
that when a man had done what Silas had done by 
an orphan child, it was a sign that his money 
would come to light again, or leastwise that the 
robber would be made to answer for it—for, as 
Mr. Macey observed of himself, his faculties were 
as strong as ever. 

Silas sat down now and watched Eppie with a 
satisfied gaze as she spread the clean cloth, and 
set on it the potato-pie, warmed up slowly in a 
safe Sunday fashion, by being put into a dry pot 


216 


Silas Marker 


over a slowly-dying fire, as the best substitute for 
an oven. For Silas would not consent to have a 
grate and oven added to his conveniences: he lov¬ 
ed the old brick hearth as he had loved his brown 
pot—and was it not there when he had found Ep- 
pie? The gods of the hearth exist for us still; 
and let all new faith be tolerant of that fetishism, 
lest it bruise its own roots. 

Silas ate his dinner more silently than usual, 
soon laying down his knife and fork, and watch¬ 
ing half-abstractedly Eppie’s play with Snap and 
the cat, by which her own dining was made rather 
a lengthy business. Yet it was a sight that might 
well arrest wandering thoughts: Eppie, with the 
rippling radiance of her hair and the whiteness of 
her rounded chin and throat set off by the dark- 
blue cotton gown, laughing merrily as the kitten 
held on with her four claws to one shoulder, like a 
design for a jug-handle, while Snap on the right 
hand and Puss on the other put up their paws to¬ 
wards a morsel which she held out of reach of 
both—^Snap occasionally desisting in order to re¬ 
monstrate with the cat by a cogent worrying 
growl on the greediness and futility of her con¬ 
duct; till Eppie relented, caressed them both, and 
divided the morsel between them. 

But at last Eppie, glancing at the clock, checked 
the play, and said, '‘0 daddy, you’re wanting to go 
into the sunshine to smoke your pipe. But I must 
clear away first, so as the house may be tidy when 
godmother comes. I’ll make haste—I won’t be 
long.” 

Silas had taken to smoking a pipe daily during 


Silas Marner 


217 


the last two years, having been strongly urged to 
it by the sages of Raveloe, as a practice “good for 
the fits”; and this advice was sanctioned by Dr. 
Kimble, on the ground that it was as well to try 
what could do no harm—a principle which was 
made to answer for a great deal of work in that 
gentleman’s medical practice. Silas did not high¬ 
ly enjoy smoking, and often wondered how his 
neighbours could be so fond of it; but a humble 
sort of acquiescence in what was held to be good, 
had become a strong habit of that new self which 
had been developed in him since he had found Ep- 
pie on his hearth; it had been the only clew his be¬ 
wildered mind could hold by in cherishing this 
young life that had been sent to him out of the 
darkness into which his gold had departed. By 
seeking what was needful for Eppie, by sharing 
the effect of everything produced on her, he had 
himself come to appropriate the forms of custom 
and belief which were the mould of Raveloe life; 
and as, with reawakening sensibilities, memory 
also reawakened, he had begun to ponder over the 
elements of his old faith, and blend them with his 
new impressions, till he recovered a consciousness 
of unity between his past and present. The sense 
of presiding goodness and the human trust which 
come with all pure peace and joy, had given him 
a dim impression that there had been some error, 
some mistake, which had thrown that dark shad¬ 
ow over the days of his best years; and as it grew 
more and more easy to him to open his mind to 
Dolly Winthrop, he gradually communicated to 
her all he could describe of his early life. The 


218 


Silas Marker 


communication was necessarily a slow and difficult 
process, for Silas’s meagre power of explanation 
was not aided by any readiness of interpretation 
in Dolly, whose narrow outward experience gave 
her no key to strange customs, and made every 
novelty a source of wonder that arrested them at 
every step of the narrative. It was only by frag¬ 
ments, and at intervals which left Dolly time to re¬ 
volve what she had heard till it acquired some fa¬ 
miliarity for her, that Silas at last arrived at the 
climax of the sad story—the drawing of lots, and 
its false testimony concerning him; and this had 
to be repeated in several interviews, under new 
questions on her part as to the nature of this plan 
for detecting the guilty and clearing the inno¬ 
cent. 

“And yourn’s the same Bible, you’re sure o’ 
that, Master Marner—^the Bible as you brought 
wi’ you from that country—it’s the same as what 
they’ve got at church, and what Eppie’s a-learn- 
ing to read in?” 

“Yes,” said Silas, “every bit the same; and 
there’s drawing o’ lots in the Bible, mind you,” he 
added in a lower tone. 

“0 dear, dear,” said Dolly in a grieved voice, as 
if she were hearing an unfavorable report of a 
sick man’s case. She was silent for some minutes; 
at last she said— 

“There’s wise folks, happen, as know how it all 
is; the parson knows. I’ll be bound; but it takes 
big words to tell them things, and such as poor 
folks can’t make much out on. I can never rightly 
know the meaning o’ what I hear at church, only a 


Silas Marner 


219 


bit here and there, but I know it’s good words— 
I do. But what lies upo’ your mind—it’s this, 
Master Marner: as, if Them above had done the 
right thing by you. They’d never ha’ let you be 
turned out for a wicked thief when you was inni- 
cent.” 

“Ahsaid Silas, who had now come to under¬ 
stand Dolly’s phraseology, “that was what fell on 
me like as if it had been red-hot iron; because, you 
see, there was nobody as cared for me or clave to 
me above nor below. And him as I’d gone out and 
in wi’ for ten year and more, since when we was 
lads and went halves—mine own familiar friend, 
in whom I trusted, had lifted up his heel again’ 
me, and worked to ruin me.” 

“Eh, but he was a bad un—I can’t think as 
there’s another such,” said Dolly. “But I’m o’er- 
come. Master Marner; I’m like as if I’d waked 
and didn’t know whether it was night or morning. 
I feel somehow as sure as I do when I’ve laid 
something up, though I can’t justly put my hand 
on it, as there was a right in what happened to 
you, if one could but make it out; and you’d no 
call to lose heart as you did. But we’ll talk on it 
again; for sometimes things come into my head 
when I’m leeching or poulticing, or such, as I 
could never think on when I was sitting still.” 

Dolly was too useful a woman not to have many 
opportunities of illumination of the kind she al¬ 
luded to, and she was not long before she re¬ 
curred to the subject. 

“Master Marner,” she said, one day that she 
came to bring home Eppie’s washing, “I’ve been 


220 


Silas Marner 


sore puzzled for a good bit wi' that trouble o’ 
yourn and the drawing o’ lots; and it got twisted 
back’ards and for’ards, as I didn’t know which 
end to lay hold on. But it come to me all clear 
like, that night when I was sitting up wi’ poor 
Bessy Fawkes as is dead and left her children be¬ 
hind, God help ’em—it come to me as clear as day¬ 
light ; but whether I’ve got hold on it now, or can 
anyways bring it to my tongue’s end, that I don’t 
know. For I’ve often a deal inside me as ’ll never 
Come out; and for what you talk o’ your folks in 
your old country niver saying prayers by heart 
nor saying ’em out of a book, they must be won¬ 
derful diver; for if I didn’t know ‘Our Father,’ 
and little bits o’ good words as I can carry out o’ 
church wi’ me, I might down o’ my knees every 
night, but nothing could I say.” 

“But you can mostly say something as I can 
make sense on, Mrs. Winthrop,”-said Silas. 

“Well, then. Master Marner, it corne to me sum- 
mat like this: I can make nothing o’ the drawing 
o’ lots and the answer coming wrong; it ’ud may¬ 
hap take the parson to tell that, and he could only 
tell us i’ big words. But what come to me as cleai 
as the daylight, it was when I was troubling over 
poor Bessy Fawkes, and it allays comes into my 
head when I’m sorry for folks, and feel as I can’t 
do a power to help ’em, not if I was to get up i’ the 
middle o’ the night—it comes into my head as 
Them above has got a deal tenderer heart nor 
what I’ve got—for I can’t be anyways better nor 
Them as made me; and if anything looks hard to 
me, it’s because there’s things I don’t know on; 


Silas Marker 


221 


and for the matter o’ that, there may be plenty o’ 
things I don’t know on, for it’s little as I know— 
that it is. And so, while I was thinking o’ that, 
you come into my mind. Master Marner, and it all 

come pouring in:-if I felt i’ my inside what 

was the right and just thing by you, and them as 
prayed and drawed the lots, all but that wicked 
un, if they'd ha’ done the right thing by you if 
they could, isn’t there Them as was at the making 
on us, and knows better and has a better will? 
And that’s all as ever I can be sure on, and every¬ 
thing else is a big puzzle to me when I think on it. 
For there was the fever come and took off them as 
were full-growed, and left the helpless children; 
and there’s the breaking o’ limbs; and them as 
’ud do right and be sober have to suffer by them 
as are contrairy—eh, there’s trouble i’ this world, 
and there’s things as we can niver make out the 
rights on. And all as we’ve got to do is to trusten. 
Master Marner—^to do the right thing as fur as we 
know, and to trusten. For if us as knows so little 
can see a bit o’ good and rights, we may be sure 
as there’s a good and a rights bigger nor what we 
can know—I feel it i’ my own inside as it must be 
so. And if you could but ha’ gone on trustening, 
Master Marner, you wouldn’t ha’ run away from 
your fellow-creatures and been so lone.”, 

''Ah, but that ’ud ha’ been hard,” said Silas, in 
an undertone; “it ’ud ha’ been hard to trusten 
then.” 

“And so it would,” said Dolly, almost with com¬ 
punction ; “them things are easier said nor done; 
and I’m partly ashamed o’ talking.” 



222 


Silas Marner 


'‘Nay, nay,” said Silas, “you’re i’ the right, Mrs. 
Winthrop—you’re i’ the right. There’s good i’ 
this world—I’ve a feeling o’ that now; and it 
makes a man feel as there’s a good more nor he 
can see, i’ spite o’ the trouble and the wickedness. 
That drawing o’ the lots is dark; but the child was 
sent to me: there’s dealings with us—there’s 
dealings.” 

This dialogue took place in Eppie’s earlier 
years, when Silas had to part with her for two 
hours every day, that she might learn to read at 
the dame school, after he had vainly tried himself 
to guide her in that first step to learning. Now 
that she was grown up, Silas had often been led, 
in those moments of quiet outpouring which come 
to people who live together in perfect love, to talk 
with her too of the past, and how and why he had 
lived a lonely man until she had been sent to him. 
For it would have been impossible for him to hide 
from Eppie that she was not his own child: even 
if the most delicate reticence on the point could 
have been expected from Raveloe gossips in her 
presence, her own questions about her mother 
could not have been parried, as she grew up, with¬ 
out that complete shrouding of the past which 
would have made a painful barrier between their 
minds. So Eppie had long known how her moth¬ 
er had died on the snowy ground, and how she her¬ 
self had been found on the hearth by father Silas, 
who had taken her golden curls for his lost guin¬ 
eas brought back to him. The tender and peculi¬ 
ar love with which Silas had reared her in almost 
inseparable companionship with himself, aided 


yM<'' 



I'k'Xsv.-;; 


mm 





DAME SCHOOL ATTENDED BY GEORGE ELIOT 




















































































224 


Silas Marker 


by the seclusion of their dwelling, had preserved 
her from the lowering influences of the village 
talk and habits, and had kept her mind in that 
freshness which is sometimes falsely supposed to 
be an invariable attribute of rusticity. Perfect 
love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the re¬ 
lations of the least-instructed human beings; and 
this breath of poetry had surrounded Eppie from 
the time when she had followed the bright gleam 
that beckoned her to Silas's hearth; so that it is 
not surprising if, in other things besides her deli¬ 
cate prettiness, she was not quite a common vil¬ 
lage maiden, but had a touch of refinement and 
fervour which came from no other teaching than 
that of tenderly-nurtured unvitiated feeling. She 
was too childish and simple for her imagination 
to rove into questions about her unknown father; 
for a long while it did not even occur to her that 
she must have had a father; and the first time that 
the idea of her mother having had a husband pre¬ 
sented itself to her, was when Silas showed her 
the wedding-ring which had been taken from the 
wasted finger, and had been carefully preserved 
by him in a little lackered box shaped like a shoe. 
He delivered this box into Eppie’s charge when 
she had grown up, and she often opened it to look 
at the ring: but still she thought hardly at all 
about the father of whom it was the symbol. Had 
she not a father very close to her, who loved her 
better than any real fathers in the village seemed 
to love their daughters? On the contrary, who 
her mother was, and how she came to die in that 
forlornness, were questions that often pressed on 


Silas Marner 


225 


Eppie’s mind. Her knowledge of Mrs. Winthrop, 
who was her nearest friend next to Silas, made 
her feel that a mother must be very precious; and 
she had again and again asked Silas to tell her 
how her mother looked, whom she was like, and 
how he had found her against the furze bush, led 
towards it by the little footsteps and the out¬ 
stretched arms. The furze bush was there still; 
and this afternoon, when Eppie came out with 
Silas into the sunshine, it was the first object that 
arrested her eyes and thoughts. 

‘‘Father,'' she said, in a tone of gentle gravity, 
which sometimes came like a sadder, slower ca¬ 
dence across her playfulness, “we shall take the 
furz bush into the garden; it'll come into the cor¬ 
ner, and just against it I'll put snow-drops and 
crocuses, 'cause Aaron says they won't die out, 
but’ll always get more and more." 

“Ah, child," said Silas, always ready to talk 
when he had his pipe in his hand, apparently en¬ 
joying the pauses more than the puffs, “it 
wouldn't do to leave out the furze bush; and 
there's nothing prettier to my thinking, when it's 
yallow with flowers. But it's just come into my 
head what we're to do for a fence—mayhap Aaron 
can help us to a thought; but a fence we must 
have, else the donkeys and things 'ull come and 
trample everything down. And fencing's hard to 
be got at, by what I can make out." 

“O, I'll tell you, daddy," said Eppie, clasping 
her hands suddenly, after a minute's thought. 
“There's lots o' loose stones about, some of 'em 
not big, and we might lay 'em atop of one another. 


226 


Silas Marker 


and make a wall. You and me could carry the 
smallest, and Aaron ’ud carry the rest—I know he 
would.’' 

“Eh, my precious un,” said Silas, “there isn’t 
enough stones to go all round; and as for you 
carrying, why, wi’ your little arms you couldn’t 
carry a stone no bigger than a turnip. You’re 
dillicate made, my dear,” he added, with tender 
intonation—“that’s what Mrs. Winthrop says.” 

“O, I’m stronger than you think, daddy,” said 
Eppie; “and if there wasn’t stones enough to go 
all round, why they’ll go part o’ the way, and then 
it’ll be easier to get sticks and things for the rest. 
See here, round the big pit, what a many stones!” 

She skipped forward to the pit, meaning to lift 
one of the stones and exhibit her strength, but she 
started back in surprise. 

“0, father, just come and look here,” she ex¬ 
claimed—^^“come and see how the water’s gone 
down since yesterday. Why, yesterday the pit 
was ever so full!” 

“Well, to be sure,” said Silas, coming to her 
side. “Why, that’s the draining they’ve begun on, 
since harvest, i’ Mr. Osgood’s fields, I reckon. The 
foreman said to me the other day, when I passed 
by ’em, ‘Master Marner,’ he said, ‘I shouldn’t won¬ 
der if we lay your bit o^ waste as dry as a bone.’ 
It was Mr. Gk)dfrey Cass, he said, had gone into 
the draining: he’d been taking these fields o’ Mr. 
Osgood.” 

“How odd it’ll seem to have the old pit dried 
up!” said Eppie, turning away, and stooping to 
lift rather a large stone. “See, daddy, I can carry 


Silas Marker 


227 


this quite well,” she said, going along with much 
energy for a few steps, but presently letting it 
fall. 

“Ah, you’re fine and strong, aren’t you?” said 
Silas, while Eppie shook her aching arms and 
laughed. “Gome, come, let us go and sit down on 
the bank against the stile there, and have no more 
lifting. You might hurt yourself, child. You 
need have somebody to work for you—and my 
arm isn’t overstrong.” 

Silas uttered the last sentence slowly, as if it 
implied more than met the ear; and Eppie, when 
they sat down on the bank, nestled close, to his 
side, and, taking hold caressingly of the arm that 
was not overstrong, held it on her lap, while Silas 
puffed again dutifully at the pipe, which occupied 
his other arm. An ash in the hedgerow behind 
made a fretted screen from the sun, and threw 
happy playful shadows all about them. 

“Father,” said Eppie, very gently, after they 
had been sitting in silence a little while, “if I was 
to be married, ought I to be married with my 
mother’s ring?” 

Silas gave an almost imperceptible start, though 
the question fell in with the under-current of 
thought in his own mind, and then said, in a sub¬ 
dued tone, “Why, Eppie, have you been a-thinking 
on it?” 

“Only this last week, father,” said Eppie, in¬ 
geniously, “since Aaron talked to me about it.” 

“And what did he say?” said Silas, still in the 
same subdued way, as if he were anxious lest he 

[ 231 ] 


228 


Silas Marker 


should fall into the slightest tone that was not for 
Eppie’s good. 

'‘He said he should like to be married, because 
he was.a>going in four-and-twenty and had got a 
deal of gardening work, now Mr. Mott’s given up; 
and he goes twice a-week regular to Mr. Cass’s, 
and once to Mr. Osgood’s, and they’re going to 
take him on at the Rectory.” 

"And who is it as he’s wanting to marry?” said 
Silas, with rather a sad smile. 

"Why, me, to be sure, daddy,” said Eppie, with 
dimpling laughter, kissing her father’s cheek; 
"as if he’d want to marry anybody else!” 

"And you mean to have him, do you?” said Silas. 

"Yes, some time,” said Eppie, "I don’t know 
when. Everybody’s married some time, Aaron 
says. But I told him that wasn’t true: for, I said, 
look at father—he’s never been married.” 

"No, child,” said Silas, "your father was a lone 
man till you was sent to him.” 

"But you’ll never be lone again, father,” said 
. Eppie, tenderly. "That was what Aaron said—T 
could never think o’ taking you away from Master 
Marner, Eppie.’ And I said, Tt ’ud be no use if 
you did, Aaron.’ And he wants us all to live to¬ 
gether, so as you needn’t work a bit, father, only 
what’s for your own pleasure; and he’d be as good 
as a son to you—^that was what he said.” 

"And should you like that, Eppie?” said Silas, 
looking at her. 

"I shouldn’t mind it, father,” said Eppie, quite 
simply. "And I should like things to be so as you 
needn’t work much. But if it wasn’t for that, I’d 


Silas Marker 


229 


sooner things didn’t change. I’m very happy: I 
like Aaron to be fond of me, and come and see us 
often, and behave pretty to you—he always does 
behave pretty to you, doesn’t he, father?” 

'‘Yes, child, nobody could behave better,” said 
Silas, emphatically. “He’s his mother’s lad.” 

“But I don’t want any change,” said Eppie. “I 
should like to go on a long, long while, just as we 
are. Only Aaron does want a change; and he 
made me cry a bit—only a bit—because he said I 
didn’t care for him, for if I cared for him I should 
want us to be married, as he did.” 

“Eh, my blessed child,” said Silas, laying down 
his pipe as if it were useless to pretend to smoke 
any longer, “you’re o’er young to be married. 
We’ll ask Mrs. Winthrop—we’ll ask Aaron’s moth¬ 
er what she thinks: if there’s a right thing to do, 
she’ll come at it. But there’s this to be thought 
on, Eppie: things will change, whether we like it 
or no; things won’t go on for a long while just 
as they are and no difference. I shall get older 
and helplesser, and be a burden on you, belike, if 
I don’t go away from you altogether. Not as I 
mean you’d think me a burden—I know you 
wouldn’t—but it ’ud be hard upon you; and when 
I look for’ard to that, I like to think as you’d have 
somebody else besides me—somebody young and 
strong, as ’ll outlast your own life, and take care 
on you to the end.” Silas paused, and, resting his 
wrists on his knees, lifted his hands up and down 
meditatively as he looked on the ground. 

“Then, would you like me to be married, fath- 


230 


Silas Marner 


er?’’ said Eppie, with a little trembling in her 
voice. 

“I’ll not be the man to say no, Eppie,” said 
Silas, emphatically; “but we’ll ask your god-moth¬ 
er. She’ll wish the right thing by you and her 
son too.” 

“There they come then,” said Eppie. “Let us 
go and meet ’em. 0 the pipe! won’t you have it 
lit again, father?” said Eppie, lifting that medici¬ 
nal appliance from the ground. 

“Nay, child,” said Silas, “I’ve done enough for 
to-day. I think, mayhap, a little of it does me 
more good than so much at once.” 


CHAPTER XVII 

While Silas and Eppie were seated on the bank 
discoursing in the fleckered shade of the ash-tree, 
Miss Priscilla Lammeter was resisting her sis¬ 
ter’s arguments, that it would be better to take 
tea at the Red House, and let her father have a 
long nap, than drive home to the Warrens so soon 
after dinner. The family party (of four only) 
were seated round the table in the dark wains¬ 
coted parlour, with the Sunday dessert before 
them, of fresh filberts, apples, and pears, duly 
ornamented with leaves by Nancy’s own hand be¬ 
fore the bells had rung for church. 

A great change has come over the dark wains¬ 
coted parlour since we saw it in Godfrey’s bache¬ 
lor days, and under the wifeless reign of the old 
Squire. Now all is polish, on which no yesterday’s 
dust is ever allowed to rest, from the yard’s width 
of oaken boards round the carpet, to the old 
Squire’s gun and whips and walking-sticks, rang¬ 
ed on the stag’s antlers above the mantel-piece. 
All other signs of sporting and outdoor occupation 
Nancy has removed to another room; but she has 
brought into the Red House the habit of filial rev¬ 
erence, and preserves sacredly in a place of hon¬ 
our these relics of her husband’s departed father. 
The tankards are on the side-table still, but the 
bossed silver is undimmed by handling, and there 
are no dregs to send forth unpleasant suggestions: 
the only prevailing scent is of the lavender and 
rose-leaves that fill the vases of Derbyshire spar. 
All is purity and order in this once dreary room, 
[ 231 ] 


232 


Silas Marker 


for, fifteen years ago, it was entered by a new 
presiding spirit. 

“Now, father,said Nancy, 'Hs there any call 
for you to go home to tea? Mayn’t you just as 
well stay with us?—such a beautiful evening as 
it’s likely to be.’’ 

The old gentleman had been talking with God¬ 
frey about the increasing poor-rate and the ruin¬ 
ous times, and had not heard the dialogue be¬ 
tween his daughters. 

“My dear, you must ask Priscilla,” he said, in 
the once firm voice, now become rather broken. 
“She manages me and the farm too.” 

“And reason good as I should manage you, fath¬ 
er,” said Priscilla, “else you’d be giving yourself 
your death with rheumatism. And as for the 
farm, if anything turns out wrong, as it can’t but 
do in these times, there’s nothing kills a man so 
soon as having nobody to find fault with but him¬ 
self. It’s a deal the best way o’ being master, to 
let somebody else do the ordering, and keep the 
blaming in your own hands. It ’ud save many a 
man a stroke, I believe.” 

“Well, well, my dear,” said her father, with a 
quiet laugh, “I didn’t say you don’t manage for ev¬ 
erybody’s good.” 

“Then manage so as you may stay tea, Pris¬ 
cilla,” said Nancy, putting her hand on her sis¬ 
ter’s arm affectionately. “Come now; and we’ll 
go round the garden while father has his nap.” 

“My dear child, he’ll have a beautiful nap in the 
gig, for I shall drive. And as for staying tea, I 
can’t hear of it; for there’s this dairymaid, now 


Silas Marner 


233 


she knows she’s to be married, turned Michaelmas, 
she’d as lief pour the new milk into the pig-trough 
as into the pans. That’s the way with ’em all: it’s 
as if they thought the world ’ud be new-made be¬ 
cause they’re to be married. So come and let me 
put my bonnet on, and there’ll be time for us to 
walk round the garden while the horse is being 
put in.” 

When the sisters were treading the neatly- 
swept garden-walks, between the bright turf that 
contrasted pleasantly with the dark cones and 
arches and wall-like hedges of yew, Priscilla 
said— 

‘T’m as glad as anything at your husband’s 
making that exchange o’ land with cousin Osgood, 
and beginning the dairying. It’s a thousand pities 
you didn’t do it before; for it’ll give you something 
to fill your mind. There’s nothing like a dairy if 
folks want a bit o’ worrit to make the days pass. 
For as for rubbing furniture, when you can once 
see your face in a table there’s nothing else to 
look for; but there’s always something fresh with 
the dairy; for even in the depths o’ winter there’s 
some pleasure in conquering the butter, and mak¬ 
ing it come whether or no. My dear,” added Pris¬ 
cilla, pressing her sister’s hand affectionately as 
they walked side by side, ''you’ll never be low 
when you’ve got a dairy.’' 

"Ah, Priscilla,” said Nancy, returning the pres¬ 
sure with a grateful glance of her clear eyes, "but 
it won’t make up to Godfrey: a dairy’s not so 
much to a man. And it’s only what he cares for 


234 


Silas Marner 


that ever makes me low. Tm contented with the 
blessings we have, if he could be contented.'' 

‘‘It drives me past patience," said Priscilla, im¬ 
petuously, “that way o' the men—always wanting 
and wanting, and never easy with what they've 
got: they can't sit comfortable in their chairs 
when they've neither ache nor pain, but either 
they must stick a pipe in their mouths, to make 
'em better than well, or else they must be swal¬ 
lowing something strong, though they're forced 
to make haste before the next meal comes in. But 
joyful be it spoken, our father was never that sort 
o’ man. And if it had pleased God to make you 
ugly, like me, so as the men wouldn’t ha’ run aft¬ 
er you, we might have kept to our own family, 
and had nothing to do with folks as have got un¬ 
easy blood in their veins." 

“0. don't say so, Priscilla," said Nancy, repent¬ 
ing that she had called forth this outburst; “no¬ 
body has any occasion to find fault with Godfrey. 
It’s natural that he should be disappointed at not 
having any children: every man likes to have 
somebody to work for and lay by for, and he al¬ 
ways coilnted so on making a fuss with 'em when 
they were little. There’s many another man 'ud 
hanker more than he does. He’s the best of hus¬ 
bands.” 

“0, I know," said Priscilla, smiling sarcastical¬ 
ly, “I know the way o’ wives; they set one on to 
abuse their husbands, and then they turn round 
on one and praise 'em as if they wanted to sell 'em. 
But father '11 be waiting for me; we must turn 
now." 


Silas Marner 


235 


The large gig with the steady old grey was at 
the front door, and Mr. Lammeter was already on 
the stone steps, passing the time in recalling to 
Godfrey what very fine points Speckle had when 
his master used to ride him. 

*1 always would have a good horse, you know,'’ 
said the old gentleman, not liking that spirited 
time to be quite effaced from the memory of his 
juniors. 

"‘Mind you bring Nancy to the Warrens before 
the week's out, Mr. Cass," was Priscilla's parting 
injunction, as she took the reins, and shook them 
gently, by way of friendly incitement to Speckle. 

‘T shall just take a turn to the fields against the 
Stonepits, Nancy, and look at the draining," said 
Godfrey. 

You’ll be in again by tea-time, dear?" 
yes, I shall be back in an hour." 

It was Godfrey's custom on a Sunday afternoon 
to do a little contemplative farming in a leisurely 
walk. Nancy seldom accompanied him; for the 
women of her generation—unless, like Priscilla, 
they took to outdoor management—were not giv¬ 
en to much walking beyond their own house and 
garden, finding sufficient exercise in domestic du¬ 
ties. So, when Priscilla was not with her, she 
usually sat with Mant’s Bible' before her, and aft¬ 
er following the text with her eyes for a little 
while, she would gradually permit them to wander 
as her thoughts had already insisted on wander¬ 
ing. 

^Richard Mant (177G-1S48) in connection with the Rev. 
George D’Oyley wrote a commentary on the whole Bible. 



236 


Silas Marker 


But Nancy’s Sunday thoughts were rarely quite 
out of keeping with the devout and reverential in¬ 
tention implied by the book spread open before 
her. She was not theologically instructed enough 
to discern very clearly the relation between the 
sacred documents of the past which she opened 
without method, and her own obscure, simple life; 
but the spirit of rectitude, and the sense of re¬ 
sponsibility for the effect of her conduct on oth¬ 
ers, which were strong elements in Nancy’s char¬ 
acter, had made it a habit with her to scrutinise 
her past feelings and actions with self-question¬ 
ing solicitude. Her mind not being courted by a 
great variety of subjects, she filled the vacant mo¬ 
ments by living inwardly, again and again, 
through all her remembered experience, especial¬ 
ly through the fifteen years of her married time, 
in which her life and its significance had been 
doubled. She recalled the small details, the words, 
tones, and looks, in the critical scenes which had 
opened a new epoch for her, by giving her a deep¬ 
er insight into the relations and trials of life, or 
which had called on her for some little effort of 
forbearance, or of painful adherence to an imag¬ 
ined or real duty—asking herself continually 
whether she had been in any respect blamable. 
This excessive rumination and self-questioning is 
perhaps a morbid habit inevitable to a mind of 
much moral sensibility when shut out from its 
due share of outward activity and of practical 
claims on its affections—inevitable to a noble- 
hearted, childless woman, when her lot is narrow. 
“I can do so little—have I done it all well?” is the 


Silas Marker 


237 


perpetually recurring thought; and there are no 
voices calling her away from that soliloquy, no 
peremptory demands to divert energy from vain 
regret or superfluous scruple. 

There was one main thread of painful ex¬ 
perience in Nancy’s married life, and on it hung 
certain deeply-felt scenes, which were the often- 
est revived in retrospect. The short dialogue with 
Priscilla in the garden had determined the cur¬ 
rent of restrospect in that frequent direction this 
particular Sunday afternoon. The first wander¬ 
ing of her thought from the text, which she still 
attempted dutifully to follow with her eyes and sil¬ 
ent lips, was into an imaginary enlargement of the 
defence she had set up for her husband against 
Priscilla’s implied blame. The vindication of the 
loved object is the best balm affection can find for 
its wounds:—“A man must have so much on his 
mind,” is the belief by which a wife often sup¬ 
ports a cheerful face under rough answers and un¬ 
feeling words. And Nancy’s deepest wounds had 
all come from the perception that the absence of 
children from their hearth was dwelt on in her 
husband’s mind as a privation to which he could 
not reconcile himself. 

Yet sweet Nancy might have been expected to 
feel still more keenly the denial of a blessing to 
which she had looked forward with all the varied 
expectations and preparations, solemn and pret¬ 
tily trivial, which fill the mind of a loving woman 
when she expects to become a mother. Was there 
not a drawer filled with the neat work of her 
hands, all unworn and untouched, just as she had 


238 


Silas Marker 


arranged it there fourteen years ago—just, but 
for one little dress, which had been made the bur¬ 
ial-dress. But under this immediate personal trial 
Nancy was so firmly unmurmuring, that years ago 
she had suddenly renounced the habit of visiting 
this drawer, lest she should in this way be cherish¬ 
ing a longing for what was not given. 

Perhaps it was this very severity towards any 
indulgence of what slie held to be sinful regret in 
herself that made her shrink from applying her 
own standard to her husband. ‘‘It was very dif¬ 
ferent—it was much worse for a man to be disap¬ 
pointed in that way: a woman could always be 
satisfied with devoting herself to her husband, but 
a man wanted something that would make him 
look forward more—and sitting by the fire is so 
much duller to him than to a woman.” And al¬ 
ways, when Nancy reached this point in her medi¬ 
tations—^trying, with pre-determined sympathy, to 
see everything as Godfrey saw it—there came a 
renewal of self-questioning. Had she done every¬ 
thing in her power to lighten Godfrey’s priva¬ 
tion ? Had she really been right in the resistance 
which had cost her so much pain six years ago, 
and again four years ago—the resistance to her 
husband’s wish that they should adopt a child? 
Adoption was more remote from the ideas and 
habits of that time than of our own; still Nancy 
had her opinion on it. It was as necessary to her 
mind to have an opinion on all topics, not exclu¬ 
sively masculine, that had come under her notice, 
as for her to have a precisely marked place for 
every article of her personal property: and her 


Silas Marner 


239 


opinions were always principles to be unwaver¬ 
ingly acted on. They were firm, not because of 
their basis, but because she held them with a 
tenacity inseparable from her mental action. On 
all the duties and proprieties of life, from filial be¬ 
haviour to the arrangements of the evening toilet, 
pretty Nancy Lammeter, by the time she was 
three-and-twenty, had her unalterable little code, 
and had formed every one of her habits in strict 
accordance with that code. She carried these de¬ 
cided judgments within her in the most unobtru¬ 
sive way: they rooted themselves in her mind, and 
grew there as quietly as grass. Years ago, we 
know, she insisted on dressing like Priscilla, be¬ 
cause ‘fit was right for sisters to dress alike,'’ and 
because “she would do what was right if she wore 
a gown dyed with cheese-colouring.” That was a 
trivial but typical instance of the mode in which 
Nancy’s life was regulated. 

It was one of those rigid principles, and no petty 
egotistic feeling, which had been the ground of 
Nancy’s difficult resistance to her husband’s wish. 
To adopt a child, because children of your own 
had been denied you, was to try and choose your 
lot in spite of Providence: the adopted child, she 
was convinced, would never turn out well, and 
would be a curse to those who had wilfully and 
rebelliously sought what it was clear that, for 
some high reason, they were better without. 
When you saw a thing was not meant to be, said 
Nancy, it was a bounden duty to leave off so 
much as wishing for it. And so far, perhaps, 
the wisest of men could scarcely make more than 


240 


Silas Marker 


a verbal improvement in her principle. But the 
conditions under which she held it apparent that 
a thing was not meant to be, depended on a more 
peculiar mode of thinking. She would have giv¬ 
en up making a purchase at a particular place if, 
on three successive times, rain, or some other 
cause of Heaven’s sending, had formed an ob- 
tacle; and she would have anticipated a broken 
limb or other heavy misfortune to any one who 
persisted in spite of such indications. 

‘‘But why should you think the child would 
turn out ill?” said Godfrey, in his remonstrances. 
“She has thriven as well as child can do 
with the weaver; and he adopted her. There isn’t 
such a pretty little girl anywhere else in the par¬ 
ish, or one fitter for the station we could give her. 
Where can be the likelihood of her being a curse 
to anybody?” 

“Yes, my dear Godfrey,” said Nancy, who was 
sitting with her hands tightly clasped together, 
and with yearning, regretful affection in her 
eyes. “The child may not turn out ill with the 
weaver. But, then, he didn’t go to seek her, as 
we should be doing. It will be wrong: I feel sure 
it will. Don’t you remember what that lady we 
met at the Koyston Baths told us about the child 
her sister adopted? That was the only adopting 
I ever heard of: and the child was transported 
when it was twenty-three. Dear Godfrey, don’t 
ask me to do what I know is wrong: I should 
never be happy again. I know it’s very hard for 
you —it’s easier for me—but it’s the will of Provi¬ 
dence.” 


Silas Marker 


241 


It might seem singular that Nancy—with her 
religious theory pieced together out of narrow 
social traditions, fragments of church doctrine 
imperfectly understood, and girlish reasonings on 
her small experience—should have arrived by her¬ 
self at a way of thinking so nearly akin to that of 
many devout people whose beliefs are held in the 
shape of a system quite remote from her knowl¬ 
edge—singular, if we did not know that human 
beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the 
barriers of system. 

Godfrey had from the first specified Eppie, then 
about twelve years old, as a child suitable for 
them to adopt. It had never occurred to him that 
Silas would rather part with his life than with 
Eppie. Surely the weaver would wish the best 
to the child he had taken so much trouble with, 
and would be glad that such good fortune should 
happen to her: she would always be very grate¬ 
ful to him, and he would be well provided tor to 
the end of his life—provided for as the excellent 
part he had done by the child deserved. Was it 
not an appropriate thing for people in a higher 
station to take a charge off the hands of a man 
in a lower? It seemed an eminently appropriate 
thing to Godfrey, for reasons that were known 
only to himself; and by a common fallacy, he 
imagined the measure would be easy because he 
had private motives for desiring it. This was 
rather a coarse mode of estimating Silas’s rela¬ 
tion to Eppie; but we must remember that many 
of the impressions which Godfrey was likely to 
gather concerning the labouring people around 


242 


Silas Marker 


him would favour the idea that deep affections 
can hardly go along with callous palms and scant 
means; and he had not had the opportunity, even 
if he had had the power, of entering intimately 
into all that was exceptional in the weaver's ex¬ 
perience. It was only the want of adequate 
knowledge that could have made it possible for 
Godfrey deliberately to entertain an unfeeling 
project: his natural kindness had outlived that 
blighting time of cruel wishes, and Nancy's praise 
of him as a husband was not founded entirely on 
a wilful illusion. 

‘1 was right," she said to herself, when she had 
recalled all their scenes of discussion—“I feel I 
was right to say him nay, though it hurt me more 
than anything; but how good Godfrey has been 
about it! Many men would have been very an¬ 
gry with me for standing out against their wishes; 
and they might have thrown out that they'd had 
ill-luck in marrying me; but Godfrey has never 
been the man to say me an unkind word. It's 
only what he can't hide: everything seems so 
blank to him, I know; and the land—^what a differ¬ 
ence it 'ud make to him, when he goes to see after 
things, if he'd children growing up that he was 
doing it all for I But I won't murmur; and per¬ 
haps if he'd married a woman who'd have had 
children, she'd have vexed him in other ways." 

This possibility was Nancy's chief comfort; 
and to give it greater strength, she laboured to 
make it impossible that any other wife should 
have had more perfect tenderness. She had been 
forced to vex him by that one denial. Godfrey 


Silas Marker 


243 


was not insensible to her loving effort, and did 
Nancy no injustice as to the motives of her ob¬ 
stinacy. It was impossible to have lived with her 
fifteen years and not be aware that an unselfish 
clinging to the right, and a sincerity clear as the 
flower-born dew, were her main characteristics; 
indeed, Godfrey felt this so strongly, that his own 
more wavering nature, too averse to facing diffi¬ 
culty to be unvaryingly simple and truthful, was 
kept in a certain awe of this gentle wife who 
watched his looks with a yearning to obey them. 
It seemed to him impossible that he should ever 
confess to her the truth about Eppie: she would 
never recover from the repulsion the story of his 
earlier marriage would create, told to her now, 
after that long concealment. And the child, too, 
he thought, must become an object of repulsion: 
the very sight of her would be painful. The 
shock to Nancy’s mingled pride and ignorance of 
the world’s evil might even be too much for her 
delicate frame. Since he had married her with 
that secret on hfs heart, he must keep it there 
to the last. Whatever else he did, he could not 
make an irreparable breach between himself and 
this long-loved wife. 

Meanwhile, why could he not make up his mind 
to the absence of children from a hearth bright¬ 
ened by such a wife? Why did his mind fly un¬ 
easily to that void, as if it were the sole reason 
why life was not thoroughly joyous to him? I 
suppose it is the way with all men and women 
who reach middle age without the clear perception 
that life never can be thoroughly joyous: under 


244 


Silas Marker 


the vague dulness of the grey hours, dissatisfac¬ 
tion seeks a definite object, and finds it in the pri¬ 
vation of an untried good. Dissatisfaction, seat¬ 
ed musingly on a childless hearth, thinks 'with 
envy of the father whose return is greeted by 
young voices—seated at the meal where the little 
heads rise one above another like nursery plants, 
it sees a black care hovering behind every one of 
them, and thinks the impulses by which men 
abandon freedom, and seek for ties, are surely 
nothing but a brief madness. In Godfrey’s case 
there were further reasons why his thoughts 
should be continually solicited by this one point 
in his Ipt: his conscience, never thoroughly easy 
about Eppie, now gave his childless home the 
aspect of a retribution; and as the time passed on, 
under Nancy’s refusal to adopt her, any retrieval 
of his error became more and more difficult. 

On this Sunday afternoon it was already four 
years since there had been any allusion to the 
subject between them, and Nancy supposed that 
it was forever buried. 

“I wonder if he’ll mind it less or more as he 
gets older,” she thought; '‘I’m afraid more. Aged 
people feel the miss of children: what would 
father do without Priscilla? And if I die, God¬ 
frey will be very lonely—not holding together 
with his brothers much. But I won’t be over¬ 
anxious, and trying to make things out before¬ 
hand : I must do my best for the present.” 

With that last thought Nancy roused herself 
from her reverie, and turned her eyes again to¬ 
wards the forsaken page. It had been forsaken 


Silas Marner 


245 


longer than she imagined, for she was presently 
surprised by the appearance of the servant with 
the tea-things. It was, in fact, a little before the 
usual time for tea; but Jane had her reasons. 

“Is your master come into the yard, Jane?” 

“No’m, he isn’t,” said Jane, with a slight em¬ 
phasis, of which, however, her mistress took no 
notice. 

“I don’t know whether you’ve seen ’em, ’m,” 
continued Jane, after a pause, “but there’s folks 
making haste all one way, afore the front win¬ 
dow. I doubt something’s happened. There’s 
niver a man to be seen i’ the yard, else I’d send 
and see. I’ve been up into the top attic, but 
there’s no seeing anything for trees. I hope no¬ 
body’s hurt, that’s all.” 

“0, no, I daresay there’s nothing much the mat¬ 
ter,” said Nancy. “It’s perhaps Mr. Snell’s bull 
got out again, as he did before.” 

“I wish he mayn’t gore anybody then, that’s 
all,” said Jane, not altogether despising a hy¬ 
pothesis which covered a few imaginary calami¬ 
ties. 

“That girl is always terrifying me,” thought 
Nancy; “I wish Godfrey would come in.” 

She went to the front window and looked as 
far as she could see along the road, with an un¬ 
easiness which she felt to be childish, for there 
were now no such signs of excitement as Jane had 
spoken of, and Godfrey would not be likely to re¬ 
turn by the village road, but by the fields. She 
continued to stand, however, looking at the placid 
churchyard with the long shadows of the grave- 


246 


Silas Marker 


stones across the bright green hillocks, and at 
the glowing autumn colours of the Rectory trees 
beyond. Before such calm external beauty the 
presence of a vague fear is more distinctly felt— 
like a raven flapping its slow wing across the 
sunny air. Nancy wished more and more that 
Godfrey would come in. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

Some one opened the door at the other end of the 
room, and Nancy felt that it was her husband. 
She turned from the window with gladness in her 
eyes, for the wife’s chief dread was stilled. 

^‘Dear, I’m so thankful you’re come,” she said, 
going towards him. 'T began to get . . 

She paused abruptly, for Godfrey was laying 
down his hat with trembling hands, and turned 
towards her with a pale face and a strange unan¬ 
swering glance, as if he saw her indeed, but saw 
her as part of a scene invisible to herself. She 
laid her hand on his arm, not daring to speak 
again; but he left the touch unnoticed, and threw 
himself into his chair. 

Jane was already at the door with the hissing 
urn. '^Tell her to keep away, will you?” said God¬ 
frey; and when the door was closed again he ex¬ 
erted himself to speak more distinctly. 

'‘Sit down, Nancy—there,” he said, pointing 
to a chair opposite him. “I came back as soon 
as I could, to hinder anybody’s telling you but me. 
I’ve had a great shock—but I care most about the 
shock it’ll be to you.” 

“It isn’t father and Priscilla?” said Nancy< 
with quivering lips, clasping her hands together 
tightly on her lap. 

“No, it’s nobody living,” said Godfrey, unequal 
to the considerate skill with which he would 
have wished to make his revelation. “It’s Dun- 
stan—my brother Dunstan, that we lost sight of 


248 


Silas Marner 


sixteen years ago. We've found him—found his 
body—his skeleton.” 

The deep dread Godfrey’s look had created in 
Nancy made her feel these words a relief. She 
sat in comparative calmness to hear what else he 
had to tell. He went on: 

‘‘The Stonepit has gone dry suddenly—from 
the draining, I suppose; and there he lies—has 
lain for sixteen years, wedged between two great 
stones. There’s his watch and seals, and there’s 
my gold-handled hunting-whip, with my name on: 
he took it away, without my knowing, the day he 
went hunting on Wildfire, the last time he was 
seen.” 

Godfrey paused: it was not so easy to say what 
came next. “Do you think he drowned himself?” 
said Nancy almost wondering that her husband 
should be so deeply shaken by what had happen¬ 
ed all those years ago to an unloved brother, of 
whom worse things had been augured. 

“No, he fell in,” said Godfrey, in a low but dis¬ 
tinct voice, as if he felt some deep meaning in the 
fact. Presently he added: “Dunstan was the 
man that robbed Silas Marner.” 

The blood rushed to Nancy’s face and neck at 
this surprise and shame, for she had been bred up 
to regard even a distant kinship with crime as a 
dishonour. 

“0 Godfrey!” she said, with compassion in her 
tone, for she had immediately reflected that the 
dishonour must be felt still more keenly by her 
husband. 

“There was the money in the pit,” he continued 


Silas Marner 


249 


—“all the weaver’s money. Everything’s been 
gathered up, and they’re taking the skeleton to 
the Rainbow. But I came back to tell you: there 
was no hindering it; you must know.” 

He was silent, looking on the ground for two 
long minutes. Nancy would have said some 
words of comfort under this disgrace, but she re¬ 
frained, from an instinctive sense that there was 
something behind—that Godfrey had something 
else to tell her. Presently he lifted his eyes to 
her face, and kept them fixed on her, as he said— 

“Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or 
later. When God Almighty wills it, our secrets 
are found out. I’ve lived with a secret on my 
mind, but I’ll keep it from you no longer. I 
wouldn’t have you know it by somebody else, and 
not by me—I wouldn’t have you find it out after 
I’m dead. I’ll tell you now. It’s been ‘I will’ and 
'I won’t’ with me all my life—I’ll make sure of 
myself now.” 

Nancy’s utmost dread had returned. The eyes 
of the husband and wife met with awe in them, 
as at a crisis which suspended affection. 

“Nancy,” said Godfrey, slowly, “when I mar¬ 
ried you, I hid something from you—something 
I ought to have told you. That woman Marner 
found dead in the snow—Eppie’s mother—that 
wretched woman—was my wife—Eppie is my 
child.” 

He paused, dreading the effect of his confession. 
But Nancy sat quite still, only that her eyes 
dropped and ceased to meet his. She was pale 


250 


Silas Marner 


and quiet as a meditative statue, clasping her 
hands on her lap. 

''You’ll never think the same of me again,” 
said Godfrey, after a little while, with some trem¬ 
or in his voice. 

She was silent. 

"I oughtn’t to have left the child unowned: I 
oughtn’t to have kept it from you. But I couldn’t 
bear to give you up, Nancy. I was led away into 
marrying her—I suffered for it.” 

Still Nancy was silent, looking down; and he 
almost expected that she would presently get up 
and say she would go to her father’s. How could 
she have any mercy for faults that must seem so 
black to her, with her simple severe notions ? 

But at last she lifted up her eyes to his again 
and spoke. There was no indignation in her 
voice—only deep regret. 

"Godfrey, if you had but told me this six years 
ago, we could have done some of our duty by the 
child. Do you think I’d have refused to take her 
in, if I’d known she was yours?” 

At that moment Godfrey felt all the bitterness 
of an error that was not simply futile, but had 
defeated its own end. He had not measured this 
wife with whom he had lived so long. But she 
spoke again, with more agitation. 

"And—0, Godfrey—if we’d had her from the 
first, if you’d taken to her as you ought, she’d 
have loved me for her mother—and you’d have 
been happier with me: I could better have bore 
my little baby dying, and our life might have 
been more like what we used to think it ’ud be.” 


Silas Marker 


251 


The tears fell, and Nancy ceased to speak. 

'‘But you wouldn’t have married me then, Nan¬ 
cy, if Fd told you,” said Godfrey, urged, in the 
bitterness of his self-reproach, to prove to him¬ 
self that his conduct had not been utter folly. 
“You may think you would now, but you wouldn’t 
then. With your pride and your father’s, you’d 
have hated having anything to do with me after 
the talk there’d have been.” 

“I can’t say what I should have done about 
that, Godfrey. I should never have married any¬ 
body else. But I wasn’t worth doing wrong for— 
nothing is in this world. Nothing is so good as 
it seems beforehand—not even our marrying 
wasn’t, you see.” There was a faint sad smile 
on Nancy’s face as she said the last words. 

“Fm a worse man than you thought I was, 
Nancy,” said Godfrey, rather tremulously. “Can 
you forgive me ever ?” 

“The wrong to me is but little, Godfrey: you’ve 
made it up to me—you’ve been good to me for 
fifteen years. It’s another you did the wrong to; 
and I doubt it can never be all made up for.” 

“But we can take Eppie now,” said Godfrey. 
“I won’t mind the world knowing at last. I’ll be 
plain and open for the rest o’ my life.” 

“It’ll be different coming to us, now she’s grown 
up,” said Nancy, shaking her head sadly. “But 
it’s your duty to acknowledge her and provide 
for her; and I’ll do my part by her, and pray to 
God Almighty to make her love me.” 

“Then we’ll go together to Silas Marner’s this 


252 


Silas Marner 


very night, as soon as everything’s quiet at the 
Stonepits.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


Between eight and nine o’clock that evening, 
Eppie and Silas were seated alone in the cottage. 
After the great excitement the weaver had un¬ 
dergone from the events of the afternoon, he had 
felt a longing for this quietude, and had even 
begged Mrs. Winthrop and Aaron, who had nat¬ 
urally lingered behind every one else, to leave 
him alone with his child. The excitement had 
not passed away: it had only reached that stage 
when the keenness of the susceptibility makes 
external stimulus intolerable—when there is no 
sense of weariness, but rather an intensity of in¬ 
ward life, under which sleep is an impossibility. 
Any one who has watched such moments in other 
men remembers the brightness of the eyes and 
the strange definiteness that comes over coarse 
features from that transient infiuence. It is as 
if a new fineness of ear for all spiritual voices 
had sent wonder-working vibrations through the 
heavy mortal frame—as if “beauty born of mur¬ 
muring sound” had passed into the face of the 
listener. 

Silas’s face showed that sort of transfiguration, 
as he sat in his arm-chair and looked at Eppie. 
She had drawn her own chair towards his knees, 
and leaned forward, holding both his hands, while 
she looked up at him. On the table near them, lit 
by a candle, lay the recovered gold—the old long¬ 
loved gold, ranged in orderly heaps, as Silas used 
to range it in the days when it was his only joy. 
He had been telling her how he used to count it 
[253] 


254 


Silas Marker 


every night, and how his soul was utterly desolate 
till she was sent to him. 

''At first, rd a sort o’feeling come across me 
now and then,^' he was saying in a subdued tone, 
"as if you might be changed into the gold again; 
for sometimes, turn my head which way I would, 
I seemed to see the gold; and I thought I should 
be glad if I could feel it, and find it was come 
back. But that didn't last long. After a bit, I 
should have thought it was a curse come again, 
if it had drove you from me, for I'd got to feel the 
need o' your looks and your voice and the touch 
o' your little fingers. You didn't know then, Ep- 
pie, when you were such a little un—you didn^t 
know what your old father Silas felt for you.” 

"But I know now, father,” said Eppie. "If it 
hadn't been for you, they'd have taken me to the 
Workhouse, and there'd have been nobody to 
love me.'’ 

"Eh, my precious child, the blessing was mine. 
If you hadn't been sent to save me, I should ha' 
gone to the grave in my misery. The money was 
taken away from me in time; and you see it's 
been kept—kept till it was wanted for you. It's 
wonderful—our life is wonderful.” 

Silas sat in silence a few minutes, looking at 
the money. "It takes no hold of me now,” he 
said, ponderingly—"the money doesn't. I wonder 
if it ever could again—I doubt it might, if I lost 
you, Eppie. I might come to think I was forsaken 
again, and lose the feeling that God was good 
to me.’’ 

At that moment there was a knocking at the 


Silas Marner 


255 


door; and Eppie was obliged to rise without an¬ 
swering Silas. Beautiful she looked, with the 
tenderness of gathering tears in her eyes and a 
slight flush on her cheeks, as she stepped to open 
the door. The flush deepened when she saw Mr. 
and Mrs. Godfrey Cass. She made her little rus¬ 
tic curtsy, and held the door wide for them to 
enter. 

‘'We’re disturbing you very late, my dear,” said 
Mrs. Cass, taking Eppie’s hand, and looking in 
her face with an expression of anxious interest 
and admiration. Nancy herself was pale and 
tremulous. 

Eppie, after placing chairs for Mr. and Mrs. 
Cass, went to stand against Silas, opposite to 
them. 

“Well, Marner,” said Godfrey, trying to speak 
with perfect firmness, “it's a great comfort to me 
to see you with your money again, that you’ve 
been deprived of so many years. It was one of 
my family did you the wrong—the more grief to 
me—and I feel bound to make up to you for it 
in every way. Whatever I can do for you will be 
nothing but paying a debt, even if I looked no 
further than the robbery. But there are other 
things I’m beholden—shall be beholden to you 
for, Marner.” 

Godfrey checked himself. It had been agreed 
between him and his wife that the subject of his 
fatherhood should be approached very carefully, 
and that, if possible, the disclosure should be re¬ 
served for the future, so that it might be made to 
Eppie gradually. Nancy had urged this, because 


256 


Silas Marner 


she felt strongly the painful light in which Eppie 
must inevitably see the relation between her fa¬ 
ther and mother. 

Silas, always ill at ease, when he was being 
spoken to by ‘‘betters,'’ such as Mr. Cass—tall, 
powerful, florid men, seen chiefly on horseback 
—answered with some constraint— 

“Sir, I’ve a deal to thank you for a’ready. As 
for the robbery, I count it no loss to me. And if 
I did, you couldn’t help it: you aren’t answerable 
for it.” 

“You may look at it in that way, Marner, but 
I never can; and I hope you’ll let me act accord¬ 
ing to my own feeling of what’s just. I know 
you’re easily contented: you’ve been a hard-work¬ 
ing man all your life.” 

“Yes, sir, yes,” said Marner, meditatively. “I 
should ha’ been bad off without my work: it was 
what I held by when everything else was gone 
from me.” 

“Ah,” said Godfrey, applying Marner’s words 
simply to his bodily wants, “it was a good trade 
for you in this country, because there’s been a 
great deal of linen-weaving to be done. But 
you’re getting rather past such close work, Mar¬ 
ner: it’s time you laid by and had some rest. You 
look a good deal pulled down, though you’re not 
an old man, are you?” 

“Fifty-five, as near as I can say, sir,” said Silas. 

“0, why, you may live thirty years longer— 
look at old Macey! And that money on the table, 
after all, is but little. It won’t go far either way 
—whether it’s put out to interest, or you were to 


Silas Marner 


257 


live on it as long as it would last: it wouldn’t go 
far if you’d nobody to keep but yourself, and 
you’ve had two to keep for a good many years 
now.” 

“Eh, sir,” said Silas, unaffected by anything 
Godfrey was saying, “I’m in no fear o’ want. We 
shall do very well—Eppie and me ’ull do well 
enough. There’s few working-folks have got so 
much laid by as that. I don’t know what it is to 
gentlefolks, but I look upon it as a deal—almost 
too much. And as for us, it’s little we want.” 

“Only the garden, father,” said Eppie, blush¬ 
ing up to the ears the moment after. 

“You love a garden, do you, my dear?” said 
Nancy, thinking that this turn in the point of 
view might help her husband. “We should agree 
in that: I give a.deal of time to the garden.” 

“Ah, there’s plenty of gardening at the Red 
House,” said Godfrey, surprised at the difficulty 
he found in approaching a proposition which had 
seemed so easy to him in the distance. “You’ve 
done a good part by Eppie, Marner, for sixteen 
years. It ’ud be a great comfort to you to see 
her well provided for, wouldn’t it? She looks 
blooming and healthy, but not fit for any hard¬ 
ships : she doesn’t look like a strapping girl come 
of working parents. You’d like to see her taken 
care of by those who can leave her well off, and 
make a lady of her; she’s more fit for it than for 
a rough life, such as she might come to have in 
a few years’ time.” 

A slight flush came over Marner’s face, and dis¬ 
appeared, like a passing gleam. Eppie was sim- 


258 


Silas Marner 


ply wondering Mr. Cass should talk so about 
things that seemed to have nothing to do with 
reality, but Silas was hurt and uneasy. 

‘‘I don't take your meaning, sir," he answered, 
not having words at command to express the 
mingled feelings with which he had heard Mr. 
Cass's words. 

“Well, my meaning is this, Marner," said God¬ 
frey, determined to come to the point. “Mrs. 
Cass and I, you know, have no children—nobody 
to be the better for our good home and everything 
else we have—^more than enough for ourselves. 
And we should like to have somebody in the place 
of a daughter to us—we should like to have Ep- 
pie, and treat her in every way as our own child. 
It 'ud be a great comfort to you in your old age, 
I hope, to see her fortune made in that way, after 
you've been at the trouble of bringing her up so 
well. And it's right you should have every re¬ 
ward for that. And Eppie, I'm sure, will always 
love you and be grateful to you: she'd come and 
see you very often, and we should all be on the 
look-out to do everything we could towards mak¬ 
ing you comfortable." 

A plain man like Godfrey Cass, speaking un¬ 
der some embarrassment, necessarily blunders on 
words that are coarser than his intentions, and 
that are likely to fall gratingly on susceptible 
feelings. While he had been speaking, Eppie had 
quietly passed her arm behind Silas's head, and 
let her hand rest against it caressingly: she felt 
him trembling violently. He was silent for some 
moments when Mr. Cass had ended—powerless 


Silas Marker 


259 


under the conflict of emotions, all alike painful. 
Eppie’s heart was swelling at the sense that her 
father was in distress; and she was just going to 
lean down and speak to him, when one struggling 
dread at last gained the mastery over every other 
in Silas, and he said, faintly— 

'‘Eppie, my child, speak. I won't stand in your 
way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Cass." 

Eppie took her hand from her father’s head, 
and came forward a step. Her cheeks were 
flushed, but not with shyness this time: the sense 
that her father was in doubt and suffering ban¬ 
ished that sort of self-consciousness. She dropt 
a Ipw curtsy, first to Mrs. Cass and then to Mr. 
Cass, and said— 

“Thank you, ma’am—thank you, sir. But I 
can’t leave my father, nor own anybody nearer 
than him. And I don’t want to be a lady—^thank 
you all the same’’ (here Eppie dropped another 
curtsy). “I couldn’t give up the folks I’ve been 
used to.’’ 

Eppie’s lip began to tremble a little at the last 
words. She retreated to her father’s chair again, 
and held him round the neck, while Silas, with a 
subd/aed sob, put up his hand to grasp hers. 

The tears were in Nancy’s eyes, but her sym¬ 
pathy with Eppie was, naturally, divided with 
distress on her husband’s account. She dared not 
speak, wondering what was going on in her hus¬ 
band’s mind. 

Godfrey felt an irritation inevitable to almost 
all of us when we encounter an unexpected ob¬ 
stacle. He had been full of his own penitence 


260 


Silas Marker 


and resolution to retrieve his error as far as the 
time was left to him; he was possessed with all- 
important feelings, that were to lead to a pre¬ 
determined course of action which he had fixed 
on as the right, and he was not prepared to enter 
with lively appreciation into other people’s feel¬ 
ings counteracting his virtuous resolves. The 
agitation with which he spoke again was not quite 
unmixed with anger. 

“But I’ve a claim on you, Eppie—the strongest 
of all claims. It’s my duty, Marner, to own Ep¬ 
pie as my child, and provide for her. She’s my 
own child—her mother was my wife. I have a 
natural claim on her that must stand before every 
other.” 

Eppie had given a violent start, and turned 
quite pale. Silas, on the contrary, who had been 
relieved, by Eppie’s answer, from the dread lest 
his mind should be in opposition to hers, felt the 
spirit of resistance in him set free, not without 
a touch of parental fierceness. “Then, sir,” he 
answered, with an accent of bitterness that had 
been silent in him since the memorable day when 
his youthful hope had perished—“then, sir, why 
didn’t you say so sixteen year ago, and claim her 
before I’d come to love her, i’stead o’ coming to 
take her from me now, when you might as well 
take the heart out o’ my body? God gave her to 
me because you turned your back upon her and 
He looks upon her as mine: you’ve no right to 
her! When a man turns a blessing from his door, 
it falls to them as take it in.” 

“I know that, Marner. I was wrong. I’ve re- 


Silas Marner 


261 


pented of my conduct in that matter,” said God¬ 
frey, who could not help feeling the edge of Si¬ 
las’s words, 

‘‘I’m glad to hear it, sir,” said Marner, with 
gathering excitement; “but repentance doesn’t 
alter what’s been going on for sixteen year. Your 
coming now and saying ‘I’m her father’ doesn’t 
alter the feelings inside us. It’s me she’s been 
calling her father ever since she could say the 
word.” 

“But I think you might look at the thing more 
reasonably, Marner,” said Godfrey, unexpectedly 
awed by the weaver’s direct truth-speaking. “It 
isn’t as if she was to be taken quite away from 
you, so that you’d never see her again. She’ll 
be very near you, and come to see you very often. 
She’ll feel just the same towards you.” 

“Just the same?” said Marner, more bitterly 
than ever. “How’ll she feel just the same for me 
as she does now, when we eat o’ the same bit, and 
drink o’ the same cup, and think o’ the same things 
from one day’s end to another? Just the same? 
that’s idle talk. You’d cut us i’ two.” 

Godfrey, unqualified by experience to discern 
the pregnancy of Marner’s simple words, felt 
rather angry again. It seemed to him that the 
weaver was very selfish (a judgment readily 
passed by those who have never tested their own 
power of sacrifice) to oppose what was undoubt¬ 
edly for Eppie’s welfare; and he felt himself 
called upon, for her sake, to assert his authority. 

“I should have thought, Marner,” he said, se¬ 
verely—“I should have thought your affection for 


262 


Silas Marner 


Eppie would make you rejoice in what was for 
her good, even if it did call upon you to give up 
something. You ought to remember your own 
life’s uncertain, and she’s at an age now when 
her lot may soon be fixed in a way very different 
from what it would be in her father’s home: she 
may marry some low working-man, and then, 
whatever I might do for her, I couldn’t make her 
well-off. You’re putting yourself in the way of 
her welfare; and though I’m sorry to hurt you 
after what you’ve done, and what I’ve left un¬ 
done, I feel now it’s my duty to insist on taking 
care of my own daughter. I want to do my duty.” 

It would be difficult to say whether it were Silas 
or Eppie that was more deeply stirred by this 
last speech of Godfrey’s. Thought had been very 
busy in Eppie as she listened to the contest be¬ 
tween her old long-loved father and this new un¬ 
familiar father who had suddenly come to fill the 
place of that black featureless shadow which had 
held the ring and placed it on her mother’s finger. 
Her imagination had darted backward in conjec¬ 
tures, and forward in previsions, of what this 
revealed fatherhood implied; and there were 
words in Godfrey’s last speech which helped to 
make the previsions especially definite. Not that 
these thoughts, either of past or future, deter¬ 
mined her resolution —that was determined by 
the feelings which vibrated to every word Silas 
had uttered; but they raised, even apart from 
these feelings, a repulsion towards the offered lot 
and the newly-revealed father. 

Silas, on the other hand, was again stricken in 


Silas Marker 


263 


conscience, and alarmed lest Godfrey's accusation 
should be true—lest he should be raising his own 
will as an obstacle to Eppie's good. For many 
moments he was mute, struggling for the self¬ 
conquest necessary to the uttering of the difficult 
words. They came out tremulously. 

‘T'll say no more. Let it be as you will. Speak 
to the child. Til hinder nothing." 

Even Nancy, with all the acute sensibility of 
her own affections, shared her husband's view, 
that Marner was not justifiable in his wish to re¬ 
tain Eppie, after her real father had avowed 
himself. She felt that it was a very hard trial 
for the poor weaver, but her code allowed no 
question that a father by blood must have a claim 
above that of any foster-father. Besides, Nancy, 
used all her life to plenteous circumstances and 
the privileges of “respectability," could not enter 
into the pleasures which early nurture and habit 
connect with all the little aims and efforts of the 
poor who are born poor: to her mind, Eppie, in 
being restored to her birthright, was entering on 
a too long withheld but unquestionable good. 
Hence she heard Silas's last words with relief, 
and thought, as Godfrey did, that their wish was 
achieved. 

“Eppie, my dear," said Godfrey, looking at his 
daughter, not without some embarrassment, un¬ 
der the sense that she was old enough to judge 
him, “it'll always be our wish that you should 
show your love and gratitude to one who's been 
a father to you so many years, and we shall want 
to help you to make him comfortable in every 



264 


Silas Marner 


way. But we hope you’ll come to love us as well; 
and though I haven’t been what a father should 
ha’ been to you all these years, I wish to do the 
utmost in my power for you for the rest of my 
life, and provide for you as my only child. And 
you’ll have the best of mothers in my wife— 
that’ll be a blessing you haven’t known since you 
were old enough to know it.” 

“My dear, you’ll be a treasure to me,” said 
Nancy, in her gentle voice. “We shall want for 
nothing when we have our daughter.” 

Eppie did not come forward and curtsy, as she 
had done before. She held Silas’s hand in hers 
and grasped it firmly—it was a weaver’s hand, 
with a palm and finger-tips that were sensitive to 
such pressure—while she spoke with colder de¬ 
cision than before. 

“Thank you, ma’am—thank you, sir, for your 
offers—^they’re very great, and far above my 
wish. For I should have no delight i’ life any more 
if I was forced to go away from my father, and 
knew he was sitting at home, a-thinking of me 
and feeling lone. We’ve been used to be happy 
together every day, and I can’t think o’ no hap¬ 
piness without him. And he says he’d nobody i’ 
the world till I was sent to him, and he’d have 
nothing when I was gone. And he’s took care of 
me and loved me from the first, and I’ll cleave to 
him as long as he lives, and nobody shall ever 
come between him and me.” 

“But you must make sure, Eppie,” said Silas, 
in a low voice—“you must make sure as you won’t 
ever be sorry, because you’ve made your choice 


Silas Marker 


265 


to stay among poor folks, and with poor clothes 
and things, when you might ha’ had everything 
o’ the best.” 

His sensitiveness on this point had increased 
as he listened to Eppie’s words of faithful af¬ 
fection. 

“I can never be sorry, father,” said Eppie. 
shouldn’t know what to think on or to wish for 
with fine things about me, as I haven’t been used 
to. And it ’ud be poor work for me to put on 
things, and ride in a gig, and sit in a place at 
church, as ’ud make them as I’m fond of think me 
unfitting company for ’em. What could I care 
for then?” 

Nancy looked at Godfrey with a pained ques¬ 
tioning glance. But his eyes were fixed on the 
floor, where he was moving the end of his stick, 
as if he were pondering on something absently. 
She thought there was a’word which might per¬ 
haps come better from her lips than from his. 

*‘What you say is natural, my dear child—it’s 
natural you should cling to those who’ve brought 
you up,” she said, mildly; ^‘but there’s a duty you 
owe to your lawful father. There’s perhaps 
something to be given up on more sides than one. 
When your father opens his home to you, I think 
it’s right you shouldn’t turn your back on it.” 

can’t feel as I’ve got any father but one,” 
said Eppie, impetuously, while the tears gath¬ 
ered. 'T’ve always thought of a little home where 
he’d sit i’ the corner, and I should tend and do 
everything for him: I can’t think o’ no other 
home. I wasn’t brought up to be a lady, and I 



266 


Silas Marker 


can’t turn my mind to it. I like the working- 
folks, and their houses, and their ways. And,” 
she ended passionately, while the tears fell, *‘rm 
promised to marry a working-man, as ’ll live with 
father, and help me to take care of him.” 

Godfrey looked up at Nancy with a flushed 
face and a smarting dilation of the eyes. This 
frustration of a purpose towards which he had 
set out under the exalted consciousness that he 
was about to compensate in some degree for the 
greatest demerit of his life, made him feel the 
air of the room stifling. 

“Let us go,” he said, in an under-tone. 

“We won’t talk of this any longer now,” said 
Nancy, rising. “We’re your well-wishers, my 
dear—and yours too, Marner. We shall come and 
see you again. It’s getting late now.” 

In this way she covered her husband’s abrupt 
departure, for Godfrey had gone straight to the 
door, unable to say more. 


CHAPTER XX 


Nancy and Godfrey walked home under the star¬ 
light in silence. When they entered the oaken 
parlour, Godfrey threw himself into his chair, 
while Nancy laid down her bonnet and shawl, and 
stood on the hearth near her husband, unwilling 
to leave him even for a few minutes, and yet fear¬ 
ing to utter any word lest it might jar on his 
feeling. At last Godfrey turned his head towards 
her, and their eyes met, dwelling in that meeting 
without any movement on either side. That quiet 
mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like 
the first moment of rest or refuge from a great 
weariness or a great danger—not to be interfered 
with by speech or action which would distract the 
sensations from the fresh enjoyment of repose. 

But presently he put out his hand, and as Nan¬ 
cy placed hers within it, he drew her towards 
him, and said— 

^‘That’s ended 

She bent to kiss him, and then said, as she 
stood by his side, ‘‘Yes, I’m afraid we must give 
up the hope of having her for a daughter. It 
wouldn’t be right to want to force her to come 
to us against her will. We can’t alter her bring¬ 
ing up and what’s come of it.” 

“No,” said Godfrey, with a keen decisiveness of 
tone, in contrast with his usually careless and 
unemphatic speech—“there’s debts we can’t pay 
like money debts, by paying extra for the years 
that have slipped by. While I’ve been putting off 
and putting off, the trees have been growing— 
[ 267 ] 


268 


Silas Marner 


it’s too late now. Marner was in the right in 
what he said about a man’s turning away a bless¬ 
ing from his door: it falls to somebody else. I 
wanted to pass for childless once, Nancy — I shall 
pass for childless now against my wish.” 

Nancy did not speak immediately, but after a 
little while she asked—“You won’t make it known, 
then, about Eppie’s being your daughter?” 

“No—where would be the good to anybody?— ' 
only harm. I must do what I can for her in the 
state of life she chooses. I must see who it is 
she’s thinking of marrying.” 

“If it won’t do any good to make the thing 
known,” said Nancy, who thought she might now 
allow herself the relief of entertaining a feeling 
which she had tried to silence before, “I should 
be very thankful for father and Priscilla never 
to, be troubled with knowing what was done in 
the past, more than about Dunsey: it can’t be 
helped, their knowing that.” 

“I shall put it in my will—I think I shall put 
it in my will. I shouldn’t like to leave anything 
to be found out, like this about Dunsey,” said 
Godfrey meditatively. “But I can’t see anything 
but difficulties that ’ud come from telling it now. 
I must do what I can to make her happy in her 
own way. I’ve a notion,” he added, after a mo¬ 
ment’s pause, “it’s Aaron Winthrop she meant 
she was engaged to. I remember seeing him with 
her and Marner going away from church.” 

“Well, he’s very sober and industrious,” said 
Nancy, trying to view the matter as cheerfully 
as possible. 


Silas Marner 


269 


Godfrey fell into thoughtfulness again. Pres¬ 
ently he looked up at Nancy sorrowfully, and 
said— 

“She’s a very pretty, nice girl, isn’t she, 
Nancy?” 

“Yes, dear; and with just your hair and eyes: 
I wonaered it had never struck me before.” 

“I think she took a dislike to me at the thought 
of my being her father: I could see a change in 
her manner after that.” 

“She couldn’t bear to think of not looking on 
Marner as her father,” said Nancy, not wishing 
to confirm her husband’s painful impression. 

“She thinks I did wrong by her mother as well 
as by her. She thinks me worse than I am. But 
she must think it: she can never know all. It’s 
part of my punishment, Nancy, for my daughter 
to dislike me. I should never have got into that 
trouble if I’d been true to you—if I hadn’t been 
a fool. I’d no right to expect anything but evil 
could come of that marriage—and when I shirked 
doing a father’s part too.” 

Nancy was silent: her spirit of rectitude would 
not let her try to soften the edge of what she felt 
to be a just compunction. He spoke again after 
a little while, but the tone was rather changed: 
there was tenderness mingled with the previous 
self-reproach. 

“And I got you, Nancy, in spite of all; and yet 
I’ve been grumbling and uneasy because I hadn’t 
something else—as if I deserved it.” 

“You’ve never been wanting to me, Godfrey,” 
said Nancy, with quiet sincerity. “My only trou- 


270 


Silas Marner 


ble would be gone if you resigned yourself to the 
lot that’s been given us.” 

“Well, perhaps it isn’t too late to mend a bit 
there. Though it is too late to mend some things, 
say what they will.” 


CHAPTER XXI 

The next morning, when Silas and Eppie were 
seated at their breakfast, he said to her— 

“Eppie, there’s a thing I’ve had on my mind 
to do this two year, and now the money’s been 
brought back to us, we can do it. I’ve been turn¬ 
ing it over and over in the night, and I think we’ll 
set out to-morrow, while the fine days last. We’ll 
leave the house and everything for your god¬ 
mother to take care on, and we’ll make a little 
bundle o’ things and set out.” 

^‘Where to go, daddy?” said Eppie, in much 
surprise. 

“To my old country—to the town where I was 
born—up Lantern Yard. I want to see Mr. Pas- 
ton, the minister: something may ha’ come out 
to make ’em know I was innicent o’ the robbery. 
And Mr. Paston was a man with a deal o’ light 
—I want to speak to him about the drawing o’ the 
lots. And I should like to talk to him about the 
religion o’ this country-side, for I partly think 
he doesn’t know on it.” 

Eppie was very joyful, for there was the pros¬ 
pect not only of wonder and delight at seeing a 
strange country, but also of coming back to tell 
Aaron all about it. Aaron was so much wiser 
than she was about most things—it would be 
rather pleasant to have this little advantage over 
him. Mrs. Winthrop, though possessed with a 
dim fear of dangers attendant on so long a jour¬ 
ney, and requiring many assurances that it would 
not take them out of the region of carriers’ carts 
and slow waggons, was nevertheless well pleased 
[ 271 ] 


272 


Silas Marner 


that Silas should revisit his own country, and find 
out if he had been cleared from that false accu¬ 
sation. 

‘‘You’d be easier in your mind for the rest o’ 
your life, Master Marner,” said Dolly—“that you 
would. And if there’s any li^ht to be got up the 
yard as you talk on, we’ve need of it i’ this world, 
and I’d be glad on it myself, if you could bring 
it back.” 

So on the fourth day from that time, Silas and 
Eppie, in their Sunday clothes, with a small bun¬ 
dle tied in a blue linen handkerchief, were making 
their way through the streets of a great manu¬ 
facturing town. Silas, bewildered by the changes 
thirty years had brought over his native place, 
had stopped several persons in succession to ask 
them the name of this town, that he might be sure 
he was not under a mistake about it. 

“Ask for Lantern Yard, father—ask this gen¬ 
tleman with the tassels on his shoulders a-stand- 
ing at the shop door; he isn’t in a hurry like the 
rest,” said Eppie, in some distress at her father’s 
bewilderment, and ill at ease, besides, amidst the 
noise, the movement, and the multitude of strange 
indifferent faces. 

“Eh, my child, he won’t know anything about 
it,” said Silas; “gentlefolks didn’t ever go up the 
Yard. But happen somebody can tell me which 
is the way to Prison Street, where the jail is. I 
know the way out o’ that as if I’d seen it yes¬ 
terday.” 

. With some difficulty, after many turnings and 
new inquiries, they reached Prison Street; and 


Silas Marker 


273 


the grim walls of the jail, the first object that an¬ 
swered to any image in Silas’s memory, cheered 
him with the certitude, which no assurance of 
the town’s name had hitherto given him, that he 
was in his native place. 

“Ah,” he said, drawing a long breath, “there’s 
the jail, Eppie; that’s just the same: I aren’t 
afraid now. It’s the third turning on the left 
hand from the jail doors—that’s the way we 
must go.” 

“0, what a dark ugly place!” said Eppie. “How 
it hides the sky! It’s worse than the Workhouse. 
I’m glad you don’t live in this town now, father. 
Is Lantern Yard like this street?” 

“My precious child,” said Silas, smiling, “it 
isn’t a big street like this. I never was easy i’ 
this street myself, but I was fond o’ Lantern 
Yard. The shops here are all altered, I think —7 
I can’t make ’em out; but I shall know the turn¬ 
ing, because it’s the third.” 

“Here it is,” he said, in a tone of satisfaction, 
as they came to a narrow alley. “And then we 
must go to the left again, and then straight 
for’ard for a bit, up Shoe Lane: and then we 
shall be at the entry next to the o’erhanging win¬ 
dow, where there’s the nick in the road for the 
water to run. Eh, I can see it all.” 

“0 father. I’m like as if I was stifled,” said 
Eppie. “I couldn’t ha’ thought as any folks lived 
i’ this way, so close together. How pretty the 
Stonepits ’ull look when we get back!” 

“It looks comical to me, child, now—and smells 
bad. I can’t think as it usened to smell so.” 


274 


Silas Marner 


Here and there a sallow, begrimed face looked 
out from a gloomy doorway at the strangers, and 
increased Eppie’s uneasiness, so that it was a 
longed-for relief when they issued from the alleys 
into Shoe Lane, where there was a broader strip 
of sky. 

“Dear heart!’' said Silas, “why, there’s people 
coming out o’ the Yard as if they’d been to chapel 
at this time o’ day —a weekday noon!” 

Suddenly he started and stood still with a look 
of distressed amazement, that alarmed Eppie. 
They were before an opening in front of a large 
factory, from which men and women were stream¬ 
ing for their mid-day meal. 

“Father,” said Eppie, clasping his arm, “what’s 
the matter?” 

But she had to speak again and again before 
Silas could answer her. 

“It’s gone, child,” he said, at last, in strong 
agitation—“Lantern Yard’s gone. It must ha’ 
been here, because here’s the house with the o’er- 
hanging window—I know that—it’s just the 
same; but they’ve made this new opening; and 
see that big factory! It’s all gone—chapel 
and all.” 

“Come into that little brush-shop and sit down, 
father—they’ll let you sit down,” said Eppie, al¬ 
ways on the watch lest one of her father’s strange 
attacks should come on. “Perhaps the people can 
tell you all about it.” 

But neither from the brush-maker, who had 
come to Shoe Lane only ten years ago, when the 
factory was already built, nor from any other 


Silas Marner 


275 


source within his reach, could Silas learn any¬ 
thing of the old Lantern Yard friends, or of Mr. 
Paston the minister. 

“The old place is all swep’ away,” Silas said to 
Dolly Winthrop on the night of his return—“the 
little graveyard and everything. The old home’s 
gone; Pve no home but this now. I shall never 
know whether they got at the truth o’ the robbery, 
nor whether Mr. Paston could ha’ given me any 
light about the drawing o’ the lots. It’s dark to 
me, Mrs. Winthrop, that is; I doubt it’ll be dark 
to the last.” 

“Well, yes. Master Marner,” said Dolly, who 
sat with a placid listening face, now bordered by 
grey hairs; “I doubt it may. It’s the will o’ Them 
above as a many things should be dark to us; 
but there’s some things as I’ve never felt i’ the 
dark about, and they’re mostly what comes i’ the 
day’s work. You were hard done by that once, 
Master Marner, and it seems as you’ll never know 
the rights of it; but that doesn’t hinder there 
being a rights. Master Marner, for all it’s dark 
to you and me.” 

“No,” said iSilas, “no; that doesn’t hinder. 
Since the time the child was sent to me and I’ve 
come to love her as myself, Pve had light enough 
to trusten by; and now she says she’ll never leave 
me, I think I shall trusten till I die.” 


CONCLUSION 


There was one time of the year which was held 
in Raveloe to be especially suitable for a wedding. 
It was when the great lilacs and laburnums in the 
old-fashioned gardens showed their golden and 
purple wealth above the lichen-tinted walls, and 
when there were calves still young enough to 
want bucketfuls of fragrant milk. People were 
not so busy then as they must become when the 
full cheese-making and the mowing had set in; 
and besides, it was a time when a light bridal 
dress could be worn with comfort and seen to 
advantage. 

Happily the sunshine fell more warmly than 
usual on the lilac tufts the morning that Eppie 
was married, for her dress was a very light one. 
She had often thought, though with a feeling of 
renunciation, that the perfection of a wedding- 
dress would be a white cotton, with the tiniest 
pink sprig at wide intervals; so that when Mrs. 
Godfrey Cass begged to provide one, and asked 
Eppie to choose what it should be, previous medi¬ 
tation had enabled her to give a decided answer 
at once. 

Seen at a little distance as she walked across 
the churchyard and down the village, she seemed 
to be attired in pure white, and her hair looked 
like the dash of gold on a lily. One hand was on 
her husband’s arm, and with the other she clasped 
the hand of her father Silas. 

'‘You won’t be giving me away, father,” she 
[ 276 ] 


Silas Marner 


277 


had said before they went to church; “you’ll only 
be taking Aaron to be a son to you.” 

Dolly Winthrop walked behind with her hus¬ 
band; and there ended the little bridal proces¬ 
sion. 

There were many eyes to look at it, and Miss 
Priscilla Lammeter was glad that she and her 
father had happened to drive up to the door of 
the Red House just in time to see this pretty 
sight. They had come to keep Nancy company 
to-day, because Mr. Cass had had to go away to 
Lytherley, for special reasons. That seemed to 
be a pity, for otherwise he might have gone, as 
Mr. Crackenthorp and Mr. Osgood certainly 
would, to look on at the wedding-feast which he 
had ordered at the Rainbow, naturally feeling a 
great interest in the weaver who had been 
wronged by one of his own family. 

“I could ha’ wished Nancy had had the luck 
to find a child like that and bring her up,” said 
Priscilla to her father, as they sat in the gig; 
“I should ha’ had something young to think of 
then, besides the lambs and the calves.” 

“Yes, my dear, yes,” said Mr. Lammeter; “one 
feels that as one gets older. Things look dim to 
old folks: they’d need have some young eyes about 
’em, to let ’em know the world’s the same as it 
used to be.” 

Nancy came out now to welcome her father 
and sister; and the wedding group had passed 
on beyond the Red House to the humbler part of 
the village. 

Dolly Winthrop was the first to divine that 


278 


Silas Marner 


old Mr. Macey, who had been set in his arm-chair , 
outside his own door, would expect some special 
notice as they passed, since he was too old to be ■ 
at the wedding-feast. 

‘‘Mr. Macey’s looking for a word from us/^ said 
Dolly; “he’ll be hurt if we pass him and say 
nothing—and him so racked with rheumatiz.” 

So they turned aside to shake hands with the 
old man. He had looked forward to the occasion, 
and had his premeditated speech. 

“Well, Master Marner,” he said, in a voice that 
quavered a good deal, “I’ve lived to see my words 
come true. I was the first to say there was no 
harm in you, though your looks might be again’ 
you; and I was the first to say you’d get your 
money back. And it’s nothing but rightful as 
you should. And I’d ha’ said the ‘Amens,’ and 
willing, at the holy matrimony; but Tookey’s done 
it a good while now, and I hope you’ll have none 
the worse luck.” 

In the open yard before the Rainbow the party 
of guests were already assembled, though it was 
still nearly an hour before the appointed feast¬ 
time. But by this means they could not only en¬ 
joy the slow advent of their pleasure; they had 
also ample leisure to talk of Silas Marner’s strange 
history, and arrive by due degrees at the conclu¬ 
sion that he had brought a blessing on himself 
by acting like a father to a lone motherless child. 
Even the farrier did not negative this sentiment: 
on the contrary, he took it up as peculiarly his 
own, and invited any hardy person present to 
contradict him. But he met with no contradic- 



Silas Marker 


279 


tion; and all differences among the company were 
merged in a general agreement with Mr. , Snell’s 
sentiment, that when a man had deserved his 
good luck, it was the part of his neighbours to 
wish him joy. 

As the bridal group approached, a hearty cheer 
was raised in the Rainbow yard; and Ben Win- 
throp, whose jokes had retained their acceptable 
flavour, found it agreeable to turn in there and re¬ 
ceive congratulations; not requiring the proposed 
interval of quiet at the Stonepits before joining 
the company. 

Eppie had a larger garden than she had ever 
expected there now; and in other ways there had 
been alterations at the expense of Mr. Cass, the 
landlord, to suit Silas’s larger family. For he 
and Eppie had declared that they would rather 
stay at the Stonepits than go to any new home. 
The garden was fenced with stones on two sides, 
but in front there was an open fence, through 
which the flowers shone with answering gladness, 
as the four united people came within sight of 
them. 

“0 father,” said Eppie, “what a pretty home 
ours is! I think nobody could be happier than 
we are.” 


THE END 








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SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 
Aims. 

Each teacher will have to adapt this classic to 
a particular class and to particular circumstances. 
Nevertheless, the editors hope to make a few sug¬ 
gestions which will either confirm the teacher in 
his opinion that he is right, or cause him to vary 
his procedure for the sake of variety and inter¬ 
est. 

First, the teacher should decide whether he is 
going to use this unit for rapid reading, or wheth¬ 
er he is going to have the novel studied. If he 
plans to use this classic for intensive study, let 
him remember that by this means he is teaching 
the pupil to read; for in school we study, and in 
after life we read. School may be, therefore, an 
opportunity to do with time and care and select¬ 
ed equipment what later we may have scant time 
for. Happy is the citizen who has learned in his 
school days to know well and to love sincerely 
a few of the best pieces of literature. He has 
acquired a little knowledge ; he has gained power 
to appreciate; he has cultivated critical judg¬ 
ment to an extent; he has improved his taste; he 
has enlisted with the champions of those things 
which are beautiful and good and true. 

The strategy in the study of Silas Marner is 
simple. The student has only to see what is there. 
But a senior in college, or a candidate for a post¬ 
graduate degree may be expected to see more than 
a pupil in the secondary school. The guide should 
[ 281 ] 


282 


,Silas Marker 


be “what the traffic will bear.’’ That is, the teach¬ 
er of good sense and sound judgment will know 
how far to go in the study of detail. The chart on 
pages 9 and 10 will help here. The objective tests 
on this novel will help further. In general the 
possibilities are: Setting, plot, character, time 
(real and dramatic), pathos, humor, phrasing, 
diction, ethics, religion, biography of the author 
revealed in the book, opinions of the author, per¬ 
sonality and style, attitude of the author toward 
art and science. Sharp eyes will make other dis¬ 
coveries. In Silas Marner, any class can see 
the important elements, enough at least to catch 
attention and create interest. The inexperienced 
teacher in handling Silas Marner will not have to 
ask: “What shall I teach?” 

Methods. 

If the teacher has a good method, let him use 
it. A plan which he has originated, or the method 
by which he was taught may be the best for him. 
We would say: “Here is your class, here is your 
material, now get results; realize the aims in the 
way which seems to keep your class busy and 
happy.” But for the sake of the difficult class and 
the indifferent pupil, and for the sake of variety, 
we offer a few suggestions—a few tactics. 

Division of Labor. Suppose you are limited in 
time. Then explain that a portion of the text 
will be studied intensively in class, and that a por¬ 
tion will be studied at home or in study-hall, a 
record to be made of the home, or outside work. 


Suggestions to Teachers 


283 


In class, a few moments of review will serve to 
connect outside work with class work, and to tie 
together the threads of the plot. We suggest that 
chapters 1, 3, 6, 9, 11, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, and the 
“Conclusion’' be studied intensively in class. By 
spurts of close study, and intervals of free study 
the movement may be carried on with success. 
Reports of outside study may be given as themes, 
oral reports, or as notebooks to be inspected by 
the class when the work is finished. 

Dramatization. Dramatizing the whole of 
Silas Marner is like making a play from the novel, 
or a scenario for a photo-play. The writing of 
the play, the assignment and learning of parts, 
and the staging and production are supervised 
and done by the class. So treated, the endeavor 
may become a project which will enlist the co¬ 
operation of the composition class, the history 
class, the public speaking class, the advertising 
class, and some of the school clubs. Silas Marner 
lends itself to dramatic presentation. 

If the teacher and pupils do not wish to under¬ 
take the dramatization of the whole book, certain 
chapters may be dramatized and presented. This 
may mean paraphrase, condensation, outlining, 
synopsis and the like. Try a portion of chapter 
1, chapters 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 19, etc. 

A variant would be the giving of scenes in 
pantomime or tableaux while a good reader reads 
cuttings from the text. The scenes may be made 
continuous as in a photo-play with placards to 
help in the exposition of the plot. 

We see no value in putting into the novel more 


284 


iSiLAs Marker 


than George Eliot put in, and no value in chang¬ 
ing the plot or emphasis. There is no harm in 
leaving out certain details, for we assume that 
this is a device to get pupils to read all of the 
book. 

An outline' for the project plan of dramatiza¬ 
tion is given here. This plan has been used suc¬ 
cessfully in some high schools. 

I. Purposing: 

1. Pupil suggests that the story be dram¬ 
atized. 

2. Pupils vote and decide to follow sugges¬ 
tion. 

II. Planning: 

1. Pupils read the book, perhaps several 
times. 

2. Class discussion involving incidents for 
dramatization, customs, costumes and 
scenery. 

3. Outline of scenes is prepared by pupils. 

4. Selection of characters best suited to 
parts. (Members of class select by 
nomination and vote.) 

5. Groups are formed for writing differ¬ 
ent scenes. (Teacher passes from group 
to group and makes suggestions.) 

6. Criticism and revision of scenes. 

7. Mimeograph copies made. 

III. Execution: 

1. Play read, each character taking his 
own part. 

^The plan is adapted from An Experiment with a Project 
Curricttlum, by Ellswortli ColUngs. MacMillan. 



Suggestions to Teachers 


285 


2. Rehearsals continue and finally the dress 
rehearsal is given the evening before 
the performance. 

3. Committees attend to all details. 

4. Play given in public. (May be at as¬ 
sembly.) 

IV. Judging: (The day following the perform¬ 
ance) . 

1. Frank criticism of the entire program. 

2. Suggestions made for improvement. 
The Social Recitation. The purpose of the 

socialized recitation is to overcome the stilted for¬ 
mality (not the true dignity) of the class exer¬ 
cise, to arouse interest, to give both sensory and 
motor pupils their chance to apply theory, and 
to develop originality and initiative. Combined 
with the project method, this device would en¬ 
courage pupils to find their own way of studying 
this classic. The teacher is the guide, critic, 
friend. We suggest a few self-starters: 

(a) Raveloe Club. Suppose the class should call 
itself the Raveloe Club, meeting in Raveloe. At 
one meeting, George Eliot herself will appear with 
a chapter of her new book, Silas Marner. She 
may be questioned about it. Criticisms may be 
offered; she may reply. At another meeting there 
would be a dialogue between Silas, Eppie, pos¬ 
sibly Aaron. At another meeting. Dr. Kimble, 
Dolly V/inthrop, Priscilla, Mr. Macey, and the 
Misses Gunn might appear in costume. Let the 
class guess from dress, action, and conversation. 


286 


,Silas Marker 


who is who. The program committee of the so¬ 
ciety will find interesting programs; they could 
follow the chapters in order. 

(b) The English Club. The class becomes, not 
an ancient club, but a modern club, with officers 
and committees. They conduct the recitation as 
they would conduct a club. Programs consisting 
of readings, themes, reports, songs, discussions 
and criticisms could be given. Committees could 
take up various things: the guilt of Silas; illus¬ 
trations for the story; the life of George Eliot as 
it relates to this book; the author’s method of 
handling the plot; how much of the book is essay, 
and how much pure narrative; the dialect of the 
characters; and so on. 

(c) A Chart of the Novel. Let the class di¬ 
vide the work, use a large blackboard and colored 
crayons, and make a more elaborate and more de¬ 
tailed chart than the one found on pages 9 and 10 
of this volume. The members will devise new ele¬ 
ments to put in. 

(d) Relief Map of Raveloe. After the class has 
found illustrations and has studied such details in 
the novel itself, let the members make a sand map 
of Raveloe on the floor of the class-room or on a 
sand table. Sand and water are cheap. Invention 
will make the village realistic. Read a chapter 
aloud with the map before the class. 

(e) Advertising. The class is publishing 
Silas Marner. They prepare reviews, notices, 
placards, posters, etc. for the book. They may 
take it up in chapters, or in parts. 


Suggestions to Teachers 


287 


(f) Correspondence Course. The class makes 
out lessons for a correspondence course on Silas 
Marner. The class then takes the part of those 
who receive the lessons; they write answers to 
the questions; they grade the papers. 

(g) Short Answer Quiz. Let the class pre¬ 
pare two or three questions each on a chapter of 
the book. Let a committee select twenty-five 
questions. Let the class take the quiz, exchange 
and grade papers, and write the results on the 
blackboard. The teacher may or may not record 
the grades. The questions should be objective: 
true-false, multiple selection, completion, etc. 

(h) A Game of Hunt and Find: Sharp Eyes. 
Members of the class try to find details which they 
think the others will not notice. They set the 
class to work upon “I iSpy.’^ For example: ‘‘Un¬ 
der what kind of bush did Mollie die?” “What 
was the color of Priscilla’s dress at the party?” 
“What herb did Silas use to make a medicine for 
Sally Oates?” “What is a Joseph?” “Who sang, 
‘God rest you. Merry Gentlemen’?” 

(j) Valentines. The class will write and illus¬ 
trate valentines for characters in the story. Com¬ 
ics will be allowed. Members make the drawings, 
the verses, etc. Members may take assumed 
names, especially names out of this book. 

(k) Letters. Members of the class write let¬ 
ters to characters in the story, to George Eliot, to 
G. H. Lewes, to Blackwoods, to the editors of this 
series. In form, the letters must be conventional 


288 


Silas Marner 


and correct; in material they must be interesting 
and practical. 

Supervised Study. Think of the study room 
as your laboratory. You are the laboratory as¬ 
sistant. Laboratory materials, such as a good 
dictionary, the enclyclopedia, histories of English 
Literature, books on the technique of the novel, 
illustrations, biographies, should be accessible. 
Maybe a special English Room could be provided. 
A special note-book or laboratory manual can be 
invented or purchased; this can be made under 
the supervision of the teacher. The teacher can 
teach how to study Silas Marner. Some may be 
permitted to read aloud to the others. Some may 
be permitted to have a Silas Marner seminar, or 
discussion group. But a laboratory is a ‘Vork- 
a-tory.” Think of the class as a class in drawing 
or painting; walk about, encourage this one, re¬ 
prove gently that one, help another, lead a bungler 
to success. 

Work and Play. Do not forget that work is as 
interesting as play, but that work to be interest¬ 
ing must show results, provide material or spirit¬ 
ual rewards and be within the power and capa¬ 
bility of the worker. The worker may begin as 
unskillful; he should strive to become a skilled 
laborer. Is the teacher a “boss,” “straw-boss,” 
or foreman? Can the blind lead the blind? Find 
the right relation between teacher and pupil in 
the study of Silas Marner. 

Tools. A workman is known by his chips, but 
also by his tools. Does a skilled carpenter or cab- 


Suggestions to Teachers 


289 


inet worker use good tools? Will he lend them to 
Tom, Dick, and Harry? Does he keep them oiled 
and sharp? Does he acquire some special tools, 
and some peculiar to his own personal needs? We 
could suggest a general list of teacher helps, but 
we will only suggest here that the teacher pro¬ 
cure and keep near some good handbook on the 
teaching of English like: 

Thomas, Charles Swain. The Teaching of Eng¬ 
lish in the Secondary School. Houghton, Mifflin, 
and Co. 

Stratton, Clarence. The Teaching of English 
in the High School. Harcourt, Brace, and Com¬ 
pany. 

Bolenius, E. M. The Teaching of Literature in 
the Grammar Grades and High School. Hough¬ 
ton, Mifflin, and Co. 

Simons, Sarah E. English Problems in the 
Solving. Scott, Foresman, and Company. 

High School Inspectors of Oklahoma. Gourse 
of Study for English. Office of the State Superin¬ 
tendent of Schools, Capitol Building, Oklahoma 
City. 

Read the chapters which apply to fiction. No¬ 
tice the special bibliographies for teachers, and 
lists of catalogues for pictures, and helps of all 
kinds. Get for your very own some good tools. 


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